US hikers\' release delayed for a few days: lawyer

"I went to the court asking them what is the latest and they told me that the second judge is on leave until Tuesday. So I am going there on Tuesday," Masoud Shafii said.

"I am always an optimist and inshallah (God willing) it will be over since the case is going through its natural and legal course," responded when asked if is expecting the case to be over then.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in interviews on Tuesday that Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, who have been held in Iran after being arrested near the mountainous Iraq-Iran border in July 31, 2009, would be released imminently.

But the judiciary, dominated by ultra-conservatives, said a day later that no decision had yet been taken and that it was studying a request by the lawyer to post bail.

"Many heads of state mediated for their release and we have forwarded their messages to the relevant bodies and we hope that the judiciary will treat them with Islamic compassion," Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying by the Iranian media on Sunday.

Bauer and Fattal were arrested along with a third hiker, Sarah Shourd, who left Iran in September last year after being granted bail on humanitarian and medical grounds.

Her bail had also been set at $500,000 and was paid through Oman, a US Gulf ally that maintains friendly relations with Iran.

On August 21, Bauer and Fattal were each sentenced to eight years in prison by a revolutionary court in Tehran on charges of espionage and illegal entry. They have appealed against the ruling.

The three have consistently maintained that they innocently strayed into Iran while hiking in Iraq\'s northern Kurdistan region.

© Copyright AFP Agence France-Presse GmbH - All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed. All reproduction or redistribution is expressly forbidden without the prior written agreement of AFP.