The visiting mothers of three US hikers held in Iran for 10 months on spying accusations were leaving the Islamic republic on Friday without their children, the hikers' lawyer said.
"I am with the mothers and we are on our way to the airport without their children," Masoud Shafii told AFP, adding that they were leaving Tehran tonight (Friday).
The lawyer had said earlier that the three American women had met with their children -- Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27 -- at Esteghlal hotel in the capital's north.
At their first teary-eyed reunion with their loved ones at the same hotel on Thursday, the mothers appealed for the trio's release as a "humanitarian gesture" by Iran.
"We have requested their freedom but I don't know what will happen," Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey, told reporters.
"Please, please let them go," she begged. "It would be a good gesture for the world to see Iran doing a humanitarian" act.
Before leaving Tehran airport on board an Emirates Airlines flight to Dubai, Hickey said in her departing words: "We are tired."
The other two mothers did not make any comments and all of them looked gloomy upon leaving, AFP correspondent said.
The three had arrived in Tehran late on Wednesday evening.
Iran's English-language Press TV and Fars news agency reported that on Friday the mothers also met with mothers of Iranian diplomats who were detained by American forces in Iraq.
Press TV showed footage of the meeting at the same hotel.
Five Iranian diplomats were freed by the US military in Iraq in July 2009 after 30 months in detention.
The US military freed the five after arresting them in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil on January 11, 2007, accusing them of arming militias and inciting anti-US attacks in the war-torn country.
The children had appeared on Thursday before reporters alongside their mothers dressed in jeans and T-shirts, with Shourd also wearing a maroon headscarf in conformity with the Islamic dress code for women in Iran.
They were then taken back to prison after a five-hour meeting.
Washington described the encounter as "positive."
"It is something that we have... pushed hard for," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington on Thursday when asked whether the move raised hopes for their eventual release.
The mothers' visit was brokered by the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which protects US interests in Iran in the absence of diplomatic ties.
Iran has given no official indication it is preparing to release the three, although the visit itself was seen as a breakthrough. During their short stay Iranian officials did not make any comment about the visit.
The three American hikers were detained on July 31 last year after crossing Iran's border while on a hiking trip in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region.
Washington insists they are innocent and should be released, stressing they had mistakenly strayed across an unmarked border in a remote mountainous area.
On Wednesday, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi renewed accusations of espionage against the trio.
"Despite their being spies and entering Iran illegally, they were dealt with according to religious teachings and in a humanitarian way," Moslehi said.
He first made the allegation that they were spies in April when he said Iran had "compelling evidence that three Americans were cooperating with intelligence services."
In March, Tehran public prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said the three faced espionage charges. But last December, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said they were accused of illegal entry.
Ties between Tehran and Washington have been poisoned for decades, with tensions now focused on the Islamic republic's controversial nuclear programme which Western governments suspect to be a cover to make an atomic weapon.
Iran strongly denies the charge, but this week the United States circulated a draft sanctions resolution at the UN Security Council despite a compromise deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey in a bid to avert fresh punitive action.
Copyright 2010 AFP Global Edition
