Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post reporter who was arrested last July, will stand trial for espionage, CNN reported Monday.

The Iranian-American will be tried soon on espionage, Tehran’s chief justice said. He is accused of economic spying, the Post reported, citing Iranian state media.

The Washington Post did not mince words on the allegation. “Any charges of that sort would be absurd, the product of fertile and twisted imaginations,” the paper said in a statement. …

“If the reports are true, these charges are absurd, should be immediately dismissed and Jason should be immediately freed so that he can return to his family,” the State Department official said.

An unsigned staff editorial appearing today in The Washington Post condemned the “persecution” of Rezaian, pointing to the implausibility of the charges against him. The Post also questioned what the reporter’s treatment portends for the nuclear deal currently being negotiated with Iran.

What’s clear is that Mr. Rezaian continues to be held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison long after Mr. Rouhani’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, described him as “ a good reporter ” and expressed the hope that “ he will be cleared in a court of law .” Again the question arises: If Mr. Rouhani and his foreign minister cannot stop the persecution of an American journalist they know to be innocent, can they be counted on to deliver on the commitments they made in the nuclear talks?

Shortly after Rezaian’s arrest, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif both expressed their faith in Iran’s judicial system and did not condemn the arrest. Over the course of Rezaian’s ongoing ordeal, Iran has refused to disclose the charges against him until recently, and prevented him from meeting with a lawyer.

An earlier Post editorial asked how Iran could be counted on to keep its nuclear commitments if it refused to address the Rezaian’s plight.

[Photo: Washington Post / YouTube ]