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WASHINGTON - Maziar Bahari, a reporter for the US weekly, Newsweek, who was jailed in Tehran for four months, said that the Iranians accused him of spying for the US, Britain, and Israel. Bahari revealed the horrors he experienced in Iranian jail and recounted to insults and beatings he endured because of an interview he gave to a satire news show in the US.

The reporter, who has dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship, was arrested in Iran on June 21, just nine days after the disputed presidential elections in the Islamic Republic. He was apparently arrested for filming opposition riots despite regime orders. The authorities threatened to execute him, tortured him, and forced him to confess to crimes he did not commit on a video then released to Iranian television.

After being released 118 days later, Bahari gave an interview on Sunday to CBS' 60 Minutes in which he told of the tortures he underwent. In addition, he printed an extensive article in Newsweek in which he said that he returned to Iran in 1998 in order to make movies and write for Newsweek.

According to him, his Iranian jailors smeared him with allegedly having connections with the West. "Mr. Bahari, you're an agent of foreign intelligence organizations," said Bahari's interrogator, who clarified he was referring specifically to CIA, MI6, Mossad, and Newsweek.

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