Immediate & Unconditional Release of Amir Hekmati

Update 2012-03-05

Iranian Court Annuls Death Sentence For Amir Hekmati American Accused of Spying

Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- An Iranian court has canceled the death sentence for an American accused of espionage in Iran, semi-official news agencies there reported Monday.

Iran's intelligence ministry sentenced Amir Mirzaei Hekmati to death in January, but the nation's Supreme Court annulled that sentence, ISNA news agency reported Monday.

The overturned verdict means that a lower court will review the case, Fars news agency said, citing Iran's attorney general.

Another lower court previously had convicted the 28-year-old of "working for an enemy country," as well as membership in the CIA and "efforts to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism," the news agencies have reported.

The status of his case was not immediately clear Monday.

The U.S. State Department has strongly condemned his conviction.

"Allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for or was sent to Iran by the CIA are simply untrue," department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said earlier this year. "The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions, and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons."

Hekmati's family also denies the allegations.
Hekmati was arrested in August while visiting his grandmother and other relatives, his family in Michigan said.

The Hekmatis said their son served in the U.S. Marines from 2001 to 2005. Later, he started his own linguistics company and contracted his services to the military as well as civilian businesses.

His military contracts included cultural competency training. He worked with troops at military bases to
promote understanding and positive communication with people of other cultures, his family said.

Update 2012-01 -10 Amir Mirzaie Hekmati, an American sentenced to death in Iran for espionage.

Iranian state television aired what it called a "confession" by 28-year-old Amir Hekmati over the weekend. His family said Tuesday that he was arrested in August while visiting his grandmother and other relatives in Iran, and that his statement had to have been coerced.

The Arizona-born, Michigan-raised Hekmati joined the Marines in August 2001, after high school. His four-year hitch included an assignment to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and a six-month deployment in Iraq in 2004, according to U.S. military records.

In 2006, after leaving the service, he started his own linguistics company and began offering his services as an English-to-Arabic translator, according to Michigan incorporation records. He contracted his services to the military as well as civilian businesses, offering training in cultural competency and working with troops at military bases to promote understanding of and positive communication with people of other cultures, his family said.

In 2010, he spent five months working as a research manager for defense contractor BAE, company spokesman Brian Roehrkasse told CNN. And Condon said Hekmati recently worked for a company that produced language-training material for the U.S. military.

The United States and Iran have no direct diplomatic relations, but Hekmati's family said he made the trip after obtaining permission from the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. The interests section has not responded to CNN requests for comment.

News of Hekmati's detention is the latest turn in a series of allegations of espionage and plotting between Washington and Tehran, following the capture of a U.S. surveillance drone by Iran, Iranian claims to have arrested a dozen CIA spies and U.S. allegations that Iran sought to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.

Hekmati's family said that after his August 29 arrest, Iranian officials told them to remain silent "with the promise of an eventual release," but they went public after Iranian television aired the accusations and Hekmati's statement on Sunday.