Jens Koch is a German photographer who worked for the newspaper Bild am Sonntag. He was arrested alongside colleague Marcus Hellwig in October 2010 after interviewing the son of Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, an Iranian woman convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning in a case that drew worldwide attention. He was released from prison on February 19, 2011, after an Iranian court commuted his prison sentence to a fine.
Bild am Sonntag said the two journalists, an editor and a photographer, had traveled to Iran to report on the story of Ashtiani. Koch and his colleague entered Iran on tourist visas and were arrested in Tabriz after interviewing Ashtiani's son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh. Iranian authorities also detained Qaderzadeh and his mother’s lawyer during the interview.
The two were initially accused of improperly entering the country on tourist visas. "The two people were not journalists—or they had no proof for it," state-run Press TV quoted judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei as saying.
In November, authorities announced that the two journalists would be charged with espionage. "The espionage charge for the two German citizens who came to Iran to stage propaganda and spying has been approved," Malekajdar Sharifi, head of the judiciary in Eastern Azerbaijan province, told the semi-official Fars News Agency. Espionage in Iran carries a possible death sentence.
Bild am Sonntag quoted Editor-in-Chief Walter Mayer as saying that "the Iranian authorities know perfectly well that they are journalists and nothing else."
On February 19, 2011, a Revolutionary Court in Tabriz sentenced Koch and his colleague to 20 months in prison for “acting against Iran's national security”, but immediately commuted the sentence to a US$50,000 fine for each journalist, allowing their release the same day. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle traveled to Tehran following the ruling and accompanied Koch and his colleague back to Germany aboard a German government aircraft. Koch had spent approximately 132 days in detention.