The freed US-Iranian reporter Roxana Saberi left Iran on a flight from Tehran to Vienna on Friday, Iran's English-language satellite channel Press TV reported.

Accompanied by her father, mother and brother, Saberi left Iran early Friday morning aboard a flight from Tehran at Imam Khomeini International Airport.

After she arrived in Vienna, Austria, later on Friday, she told reporters that she planned to stay in the city for several days, according to reports reaching here.

Saberi, a 32-year-old freelance journalist born in the United States and whose father is an Iranian, was arrested in Iran in the second half of January 2009 on charges of espionage for the United States.

In April, Saberi received eight years of sentence, but after a hearing in the appeal court on Sunday, her sentence was reduced to a two-year suspended term.

She was freed from the jail in Tehran on Monday afternoon.

In Iran, Saberi had been working for various news organizations including the BBC and US National Public Radio (NPR).

According to Iranian authorities, Saberi had been denied press credentials since 2006, but she defied the ban and continued journalistic activities.

Iranian Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i told reporters Wednesday that despite being released, Saberi was proven to be involved in acts of espionage, Press TV reported.

When asked about the reasons behind Saberi's release despite the confirmation of espionage, Eje'i explained that Saberi was in fact convicted and handed a jail sentence but the sentence had been suspended for five years at the discretion of the judge.

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2009)