Posted on behalf of Michele Catanzaro

The trial of Omid Kokabee, an Iranian physics doctoral student accused of conspiring against his country, has been unexpectedly postponed. The trial had been scheduled to begin on Saturday 16 July.

Kokabee has spent the past six months in jail for “communicating with a hostile government” and “illegal earnings”, but he claims his innocence, and his colleagues and other scientists are campaigning to protest his imprisonment.

Kokabee’s lawyer, Saeed Khalili, only learned of the postponement when he arrived in court on Saturday, according to a friend of Kokabee’s in Iran, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted by the government. Neither the lawyer nor Kokabee received explanations about this decision, and the new trial date is still unknown.

The postponement took place the day after the publication of a letter by the Committee of Concerned Scientists (CCS), an independent human rights organization based in New York. This message, addressed to Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamene’i, asked him to “correct a grave mistake made by the government officials in jailing Omid Kokabee”.

Kokabee, an 29 years old Iranian Turkmen, moved in August 2010 from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Spain, where he conducted his graduate studies, to the University of Texas in Austin, USA, to study for a PhD in experimental physics, specializing in the design of tunable lasers.

In February, Kokabee was arrested by the Iranian security services while trying to leave Iran after visiting his family, and was taken to Evin prison in Teheran.

If the trial takes place, Kokabee’s lawyer expects it to be heard by Judge Abolghasem Salavati. If found guilty, Kokabee could face a sentence ranging from several years in prison to the death penalty.