9 September 2010 Last updated at 21:35 GMT

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Iran to release one of three captured US hikers

The three Americans are reportedly being held in the Evin prison

Iran is to free on Saturday one of three detained American hikers accused of espionage, officials in Tehran say.

An Iranian official named her Sarah Shourd, 31. No reason has been given for her release.

She was seized with Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 27, last July. Tehran accuses them of entering illegally and having links to US intelligence.

The hikers' families say they were in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region and unintentionally crossed the border.

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Analysis

Jon LeyneTehran correspondent, BBC News, Cairo

The Iranians have not indicated why they are planning the release. It could be that they are doing so for their own reasons.

That's what happened with the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi and with the British sailors held in Iran after straying across the maritime boundary.

Any decision of this kind would be negotiated between the different power centres in Iran, including the Revolutionary Guards, the intelligence ministry, the president and possibly even the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

They may simply have concluded that the diplomatic cost of this case outweighs any leverage they can extract.

The holiday of Eid al-Fitr provides a suitable opportunity to cast the move as an example of Muslim compassion, and those in the bureaucracy who disagree would be conveniently distracted.

(BBC)

On Thursday, reporters in Tehran received the text message from the Iranian culture ministry, which - according to the Associated Press - said: "The release of one of the detained Americans will be on Saturday, 0900am at the Estaghlal hotel."

This is the same hotel in Tehran where the parents of the Americans were allowed to briefly meet them in May.

The Iranian official at the UN later told the BBC the hiker to be freed was Ms Shourd.

The Americans have been held in Tehran's Evin prison.

They have not been publicly charged.

In December, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said they would stand trial, but he did not specify on what charges.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on Tehran to free the hikers, and said that any charges would be unfounded.