Local News

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― Newly released video shows what three Americans currently being detained in Iran were doing there before they were arrested.

The hikers, including Minnesota-native Shane Bauer, were arrested near the border between Iraq and Iran at the end of last July. The other two hikers arrested were Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd.

The hikers' parents hope the newly released video will show the hikers had no other purpose in being there than to be on vacation.

The video shows Bauer, Shourd and Fattal dancing in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. It was shot two days before they were arrested while on a hike.

The videos were shot by Shon Meckfessel, a fourth American on the trip who did not go hiking with the others because he was feeling ill.

Bauer, Shourd and Fattal are still being held in prison on allegations of espionage. They've been in captivity now for almost three months.

Shane Bauer is a freelance journalist who was hired to cover the Kurdish elections.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has appealed for the group's release. Diplomats from Iraq and Switzerland have also tried to intervene on the hikers behalf.

The Americans have not had any contact with their families. The Swiss Ambassador to Iran did visit with them last month. The Swiss represent U.S. interests in Iran because the United States has no formal diplomatic relations with the Islamic republic.

Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he wants the courts to look at the case with "maximum leniency."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said last week that investigators are still questioning the three and that their fate rests with judicial authorities.

Mottaki gave no other details on the case. But his comments suggested that formal charges could still be possible against the Americans, although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview with The Associated Press last month that he could ask the judiciary to "take a look at the case with maximum leniency."

One of the videos shows Fattal performing an impromptu rap song -- "Yo, it's hot/It's 'cos I'm in Iraq." -- against a backdrop of the city of Irbil in Iraq. A second video shows Fattal, Bauer and Shourd in an unfinished cinder block building.

"These kids were on vacation. They were just traveling; they were having a good time," Nora Shourd, Shourd's mother, said in a phone interview Monday.

"It's obvious they're on vacation. This makes it real clear that they were there having fun," said Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey, who lives in eastern Minnesota. "This is a carefree attitude and not an attitude of someone that was meaning to do harm."

Laura Fattal said the videos showed her son looking well and fit -- "on top of his game."

But it was hearing his voice that really affected her.

"It took me aback," Fattal said. "I said, 'That's really Josh. And I really haven't heard from him.' When you hear a voice, that pulls at your heart strings."

As for his rapping ability, Fattal said, "Of course I think he's adorable."

More importantly, she said, the two videos show "the harmless nature of all three of them."

Fattal, who lives in the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, said she and the other two mothers traveled to the United Nations Iranian mission in New York on Oct. 15 to deliver a petition signed by more than 2,500 people asking that the hikers be released.

Iranian authorities have had nearly three months to question the hikers, Fattal said, and "I can't imagine what else they're expecting to hear."

Shourd, Bauer and Fattal are friends who all graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. Bauer had been living in Damascus, Syria, with Shourd, his girlfriend. Fattal went to visit them after traveling overseas on a teaching fellowship with the International Honors Program.

Watching the videos has been bittersweet, Hickey said. "It was kind of fun to see that they were having fun and they were being kids. "But it also made me really wonder why they're still being held. It made me miss Shane even more."

Nora Shourd, who lives in Oakland, said she's watched the videos "50 times already."

"It's wonderful to see them. It's wonderful to see Sarah dancing and they're really having a good time," she said. "But then I feel the opposite, which is -- Why in the world are they sitting in a jail in Iran?"

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)