BBC News with Jerry Smit.
A leading human rights lawyer in Iran is among a number of political prisoners who’ve been released just days before the new President Hassan Rouhani travels to New York to address the UN General Assembly. Nasrin Sotoudeh who represented the Nobel Prize winner Shirin Ebadi had been convicted endangering national security. She told the BBC she was delighted to be free.
“I finally got my wish personally ringing my doorbell my myself because they gave me a lift from prison. I went to my door and press the doorbell myself, I could see the children could see me from the intercom downstairs and they were very happy and I was very happy to see them.”
Seven other women and three men are also reported to have been freed. President Rouhani was elected on promises over more moderate and open approach.
Russia says it will present new evidence to the UN Security Council that Syrian rebels carried out last month's chemical weapons attack outside Damascus. The United States says there is no doubt Syrian government forces will responsible for gassing hundreds of civilians. But speaking in Damascus, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the Syrian government wants to prove that's not true.
“We have indeed received additional evidence collected analyzed and concluded upon by the Syrian authorities on what they believe is proof for use of chemical weapons by insurgents, so-called insurgents.”