Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that two US nationals who were convicted of spying for the US will be released in a couple of days as a humanitarian gesture. According to Iranian PressTV, President Ahmadinejad made the announcement in an interview with a news channel. Earlier, the lawyer for the US citizens said that court has set a bail of 5 lakh dollars for each of them, adding that the two will be freed when the bail is paid. The lawyer said that the families of the two Americans and the Swiss embassy, as the representative of US interests in Tehran, were informed of this matter. US citizens-Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd were arrested in July 2009 after allegedly crossing the border from the mountains of northern Iraq's Kurdistan region. The three were charged with espionage. In August, Iran sentenced Bauer and Fattal to eight years in prison.