Posted on behalf of Michele Catanzaro.

Omid Kokabee, a physics student accused of spying by Iran, has spent one year in Evin jail in Tehran without being judged. In a hearing on 31 January the trial was postponed for at least another four months, according to sources in Tehran. The trial has already been postponed twice before, in July and October.

Kokabee complains in an open letter published by the opposition magazine Khaleme that authorities are trying to obtain his “collaboration” through threats to him and his family. According to this document, Iranian authorities are seeking scientific cooperation: “My only mistake has been to study and seek expertise in a field that has turned out to be needed,” the document states.

Kokabee, a 29-year-old Iranian graduate student in laser physics at the University of Texas, Austin, was arrested by Iranian intelligence at Tehran’s airport in February 2011, and accused of “collaboration with a hostile government” and “illegal earnings”. In an earlier open letter, published by Kaleme in July, he proclaimed his innocence, and the American Physical Society, along with four international optics organizations, asked for a fair trial for him.

The Committee of Concerned Scientists, which started a petition demanding a fair trial, will discuss Kokabee’s case at its Annual Board Meeting on 19 February “with two distinguished guests from Iran”, says Eugene Chudnovsky, the organization’s co-chairman. “At that time decisions will be made on how to address Omid’s case in the most effective way.”