US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticizes Tehran for sending what she described as mixed signals on the fate of a detained US-Iranian journalist.

Speaking to a Senate panel, Clinton expressed grave concerns about Roxana Saberi's health, saying that Washington is pursuing "every channel" to secure her release.

The 32-year-old Saberi, who has reported for the BBC, NPR and other media, was arrested in late January for working in Iran after her press credentials had expired.

She was later sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of spying for the government of the United States.

"We hear mixed responses all the time from the government. They're going to let her out, they're going to let her out in two months, they're going to sentence her to eight years, they're going to do an appeal," Clinton told the panel on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Deputy Head of the Iranian prosecutor's office judge Haddad said the jailed Iranian-American journalist has a chance of sentence reduction on appeal.

"The case will be reviewed by the court of appeal and amendments will be made to the sentence should there be room for amendments," said the judiciary official.

Clinton repeated remarks by Saberi's father claiming that Roxana is on the second week of a hunger strike, telling the panel that she is "extremely unhappy and is on a hunger strike,"

Iranian Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi, however, was quoted as saying by ISNA on Tuesday that she was not on a hunger strike and was in good shape.

Iran's judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi ordered a "careful, quick and fair" appeal for the controversial eight-year sentence of the Iranian-American journalist.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his part has asked Iran's judiciary to ensure that justice is administered in the case of the detained journalist.

US President Barack Obama had earlier expressed concern over the sentencing of Saberi, saying, "She is an American citizen, and I have complete confidence that she was not engaging in any sort of espionage."

CS/HGH