IRAN HAS NAMED WHICH of three US hikers detained there for over a year it will release this weekend.

Sarah Shourd, 32, will be released on Saturday before awaiting media at a hotel in Tehran.

Shourd’s family had expressed their concerns over her health, saying that she has a condition which requires her to see a doctor every couple of months. She was diagnosed over 10 years ago with precancerous cervical cells which require close monitoring.

Shourd told her mother in August that her requests for medical access had been denied. Iran is releasing her as an act of clemency to mark the end of Ramadan.

The three hikers, Sarah Shourd, 31, Shane Bauer, 27, and Josh Fattal, 27, were arrested in July 2009 along the Iranian border with Iraq on suspicion of espionage. They were allowed to meet their mothers once during their captivity, in the same hotel in Tehran that Shourd will be released at tomorrow.

The detention of the trio has put more strain on relations between Iran and the US, which have become increasingly taut this year over Iran’s nuclear programme.

In a letter to the New York Times in November 2009, a member of the Iranian mission to the UN, Mohammed R B Sahraei, said that the hikers entered Iranian territory illegally. Sahraei wrote, “Iran is only doing what any sovereign country would do.”

The hikers’ families have said they believe the three crossed the border accidentally en route to a sea resort called Ahmed Awa.

This video from AP shows that news of the release has been welcomed by some Iranians: