Iran Hints at Possible Release of Washington Post Correspondent Soon GENEVA - A senior Iranian emissary hinted on Friday that Iranian authorities might be prepared to free a Washington Post correspondent who has been inexplicably imprisoned and kept virtually incommunicado since July 22. The emissary, Mohammad Javad Larijani, who was attending a United Nations Human Rights Council session, said that security service officials had prepared charges against the correspondent, Jason Rezaian, for activities "entering the area of the security of the state." But he added that he hoped the charges would be dropped during court proceedings that he expected to start "soon." Mr. Larijani, a member of a politically powerful Iranian family and secretary general of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, declined to elaborate on the charges. Nor did he further specify the status of Mr. Rezaian's case in the opaque Iranian judicial process. Mr. Rezaian has not been able to hire a lawyer because no charges have been formally made. But Mr. Larijani's suggestion that the charges - whatever they may be - could be dismissed went beyond what other top Iranian officials have said about the mysterious case. "We, as the Council of Human Rights, requested a review of the charges before going to the court procedure," he said in a short interview after the United Nations meeting. As the court procedure is elaborate, it takes time. So the prosecutor was kind enough to take a second review, so we hope the charges will be dropped. Mr. Rezaian, 38, a dual Iranian-American citizen from California, has been The Post's correspondent based in Tehran since 2012. His unexplained imprisonment has been denounced by The Post and top American officials, and has exacerbated the underlying mistrust between the United States and Iran, which broke formal diplomatic ties more than three decades ago. Mr. Larijani spoke a day after Mr. Rezaian's relatives in the United States issued a blunt statement calling his incarceration a farce. They said it was clear that the authorities had failed to find anything incriminating after 100 days of interrogating him. Otherwise, they said, he would have been charged by now. Ali Rezaian, Mr. Rezaian's brother, said he was heartened by Mr. Larijani's comments. "After 100 days in detention and no evidence, surely Mr. Larijani agrees," the brother said in a statement. We share in Mr. Larijani's hope that any accusations will be dropped promptly and without need for a trial. Mr. Larijani's appearance here came against a backdrop of new accusations that Iran's human rights record had worsened. In a three-hour discussion at the United Nations Human Rights Council, he defended Iran as part of a review that all member states undergo every four years. Earlier this week, a special United Nations investigator, Ahmed Shaheed, said in a report to the General Assembly that the use of capital punishment had increased in Iran, as had harassment of journalists like Mr. Rezaian. Mr. Shaheed said Iran had shown a "pattern of continuing general repression of freedom of expression." Iran has faced a barrage of criticism over its capital punishment practices. The issue shot to prominence with the execution last Saturday of a 26-year-old woman, Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was hanged after being convicted of murder for killing the man she had accused of trying to rape her, despite concerns about the trial and international appeals for clemency. Delegates from many European countries at the Geneva meeting urged Iran to adopt a moratorium on the death penalty. Mr. Larijani promised Iran would respond in writing to all the recommendations put to it, but his delegation also rejected many of the concerns raised by governments and human rights groups. In the case of Ms. Jabbari, Mr. Larijani said he had pleaded "very humbly" for the family of the victim to forgive her, which under Iran's law would have provided a way to spare her life. But he said the family had refused. "Perhaps one reason for that was the huge propaganda that was created against this case," he said.