saberiFargo-born journalist Roxana Saberi’s release from an Iranian prison is imminent, according to an official cited this morning in a report by Reuters. UPDATE: Her lawyer says she is “now out of jail.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar says: “Saberi is now free to return home.”

“Investigations with her have taken place and she will be released in the next few days,” an unnamed person from the prosecutor’s office in Tehran is said to have told ISNA news agency. 

Jailed since January for espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison, Saberi was hospitalized last week after she began a hunger strike in April. 

UPDATE: ”The appeals court … has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence,” Sky News quotes Saberi’s lawyer as saying. 

UPDATE II: U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar issued this statement

I am glad this injustice has been reversed and Roxana Saberi is now free to return home.  Her arrest and imprisonment provoked a worldwide response.  The government of Iran should never have used this young American journalist as a pawn in their international game.