Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post’s Tehran correspondent, who has been imprisoned by the Iranian authorities on undisclosed charges for more than seven months, has been allowed to hire a lawyer after extensive delays, his family has reported.
Mr. Rezaian’s brother, Ali, and mother, Mary, said in an emailed announcement Sunday that he would be represented by Leila Ahsan, the same lawyer who represents Mr. Rezaian’s wife, the Iranian journalist Yeganeh Salehi. Both were arrested in their Tehran home on July 22, but Ms. Salehi was released on bail after about two months.
The obstruction of Mr. Rezaian’s right to a lawyer has been one of many questions shrouding his prosecution. The judiciary has yet to explain the nature of the charges against Mr. Rezaian or his wife, and she has been warned not to speak about the case.
Mr. Rezaian’s family and The Washington Post have repeatedly called on Iran to release Mr. Rezaian and have described the prosecution and lack of due process afforded to him as a farce. American officials have also pressed Iran to release Mr. Rezaian.
“We can report that the Iranian government, having illegally detained Jason Rezaian for 222 days, has finally permitted Jason to hire a lawyer to present a defense against the still-undisclosed charges that have already robbed Jason of more than seven months of his life,” the Rezaian family’s statement said.
The family had sought to hire Masoud Shafiei, an Iranian lawyer experienced in representing foreigners and dual citizens imprisoned in Iran. But for reasons that have not been made clear, the judiciary has not permitted Mr. Shafiei to take the case.
The family said it hoped that Ms. Ahsan’s “knowledge of the case and access to the files will ensure that there are no further unwarranted delays in the process.”
Mr. Rezaian, a 38-year-old Californian of Iranian descent, has been The Washington Post’s Tehran bureau chief since 2012.
There have been hints that the prosecution may be a politically motivated move by deeply conservative elements of the Iranian government to embarrass President Hassan Rouhani, who has been attempting to ease Iran’s estrangement with the United States and to negotiate an agreement over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
A few weeks ago a member of the Iranian Parliament, Hamid Rasaei, an outspoken critic of Mr. Rouhani, was quoted by the Fars News Agency as saying that Mr. Rezaian and his wife had been accused of collaborating with someone close to Mr. Rouhani, whom he did not identify, to penetrate “the most sensitive sections at the president’s office.”
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