He also said the initial verdict is not final and could be changed by the court of appeals, Shahab reported.

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Curt Weldon, a Republican congressman who has championed the need for anti-missile defences, believes the Shahab-3 may already be operational.

ECONOMIST: Israel��s missile nightmares

In Wana, a two-road town 40km from the Afghan border, surrounded by orchards and a vast FC camp, Syed Shahab Ali Shah explains the system that he runs.

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Iran's attorney general, Hojjatoleslam Dorri Najafabadi, said last month that Saberi's case "will go through its legal process like other cases, " according to Iran's unofficial Shahab news Web site.

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After lobbying vigorously to stem the flow of Russian technology to Iran, Israel appears to have accepted that nothing is likely to stop the Shahab series of missiles from being developed.

ECONOMIST: Israel��s missile nightmares

"In terms of long-term strength and the whole threat that we see of the ballistic Shahab missiles and other types of missiles from Iran, this is a main factor why we developed it and deployed it, " he said.

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What frightens Razieh, for example, who is fully garbed in the chador, is that her husband, an unemployed hothead by the name of Hodjat (Shahab Hosseini), will discover what kind of job she has taken, and her fear is well founded.

NEWYORKER: Tehran Tales

It is less clear whether Iran is capable of putting a miniaturised warhead on one of its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles, which have a range of 1, 200 miles (1, 900 km), but the IAEA suggests it has conducted experiments to that end.

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