[Image: http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/images/9/2012/02/5e9310bd4763de8448cc0e177cedb5bf.jpg]
TEHRAN — A former U.S. Marine sentenced to death in his native Iran for spying for the CIA could be saved if the Obama administration would consider a prisoner swap, his Iranian attorney said Wednesday.
Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, 28, who was sentenced to be hanged in January, could face execution immediately after an appeals court has reviewed his sentence. The court’s decision was expected Jan. 25. The reason for the delay is unclear, lawyer Mohammad Hossein Aghassi said.
Aghassi stressed that it was essential for the Obama administration to do anything within its means to reach out to Iranian authorities — including offering a possible prisoner exchange — to save Hekmati.
Iran has repeatedly asked for the release of Shahrzad Mir Golikhani, an Iranian American sentenced for involvement in an attempt to export night-vision equipment to Iran and who is imprisoned in Florida. In total, Iran has a list of 11 prisoners in U.S. captivity it says are illegally detained.
“His mother says Hekmati is in bad shape,†said Aghassi, whom Hekmati’s family asked Wednesday to represent their son.
U.S. officials confirmed that American diplomats have had no access to Hekmati in prison, either directly or through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents U.S. interests in the country. A State Department official, insisting on anonymity in discussing the diplomatically sensitive case, said Iranian authorities do not recognize Hekmati’s dual citizenship.
“The Iranians claim that he is an Iranian citizen and thus there is no access requirement,†the official said.
The official said the Obama administration is continuing to press Iran to release Hekmati, but he offered no details.
“We remain very concerned about the welfare of Mr. Hekmati,†he said.
U.S. officials have denied that Hekmati is a spy.
The United States has never officially reacted to Iranian suggestions of prisoner swaps, but Iran has in the past released European citizens in moves closely followed by the release of Iranians or high-profile visits to Iran by European diplomats.
Iran has also unilaterally released dual nationals in the past, often after heavy media pressure or interventions by religious leaders.
Hekmati’s case is made more sensitive by the fact that it coincides with a string of mysterious explosions and assassinations in Iran, which many here say are the work of a covert U.S. or Israeli sabotage program.
Precisely when and where Hekmati was arrested is unclear. Iranian news reports have said he was detained in late August or early September upon arrival in the country. Hekmati’s family members, who live in Michigan, have reportedly said he was in Iran to visit his grandmothers.
The former Marine appeared on Iranian state television in December and purportedly confessed to working for the CIA and being sent to Iran to act as a counter-intelligence agent.
Hekmati’s mother traveled to Iran two weeks ago and has since met him three times in the visitors’ section of Evin prison, the last time Wednesday. Hekmati is being held in solitary confinement in a ward that is under the control of the Islamic republic’s intelligence service.
Hekmati’s mother, who declined to be interviewed out of fear of not being able to leave the country, told Aghassi that her son looked “unbelievably thin, feeble and depressed.†Aghassi said he has not yet been allowed to meet with his client, who until Wednesday was defended by a state-appointed lawyer.
“He is telling her, ‘Don’t worry about me, Mom,’ because he fears for her safety. He kept on repeating this line, his mother told me,†said Aghassi, a well-known lawyer in Iran who has won several prominent cases.
Hekmati told his mother that his two interrogators were sitting next to him while he confessed to being a spy on Iranian television. “How could he do anything else than admit crimes under such circumstances?†Aghassi asked.
Aghassi said he hoped that the case, which he said was being reviewed by Iran’s highest judicial council, would be referred back to a lower court, which usually means a reduction in the initial sentence.
Hekmati’s case is very different from that of three Americans known as “the hikers,†who were held in Iran for more than two years, the lawyer said. Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal held American nationality, while Hekmati, who was born in Arizona, traveled to Iran using his Iranian passport.
As Iran does not recognize dual nationality, the United States’ protecting power in Iran, Switzerland, will not be able to intervene. Additionally, mediation by the Persian Gulf state of Oman, which led to the release of the hikers, would be complicated. Bauer and Fattal were released in September 2011, Shourd in 2010.
Aghassi said his client needed direct action from the U.S. government. In 2011, an Iranian Dutch woman was hanged almost immediately after losing her appeal, taking the Dutch Foreign Ministry and the European Union by surprise.
“This is something only the Obama administration can solve,†Aghassi said. “We can only pray that we will be successful in rescuing Hekmati.â€
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ex-marine-sentenced-to-death-in-iran-needs-us-intervention-lawyer-pleads/2012/02/08/gIQAH58EzQ_story.html
hope for a miracle that your homeland's government won't execute you
Update
Family visited the guy
The mother of an American man sentenced to death in Iran for espionage visited her gaunt and frightened son on death row in a Tehran prison this month, as his lawyers in Iran began an appeal of his conviction, an American lawyer representing the family said on Tuesday.
Benhaz Hekmati traveled alone to Tehran on Jan. 28 to visit her son, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former Marine who, according to rights activists, is the first American citizen sentenced to death in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Mrs. Hekmati stayed with close relatives, and visited her son at Evin Prison three times, spending roughly an hour with him each time, before returning to the United States last week.
“She had no restrictions on her movement — she was able to meet her son, to see her son and to hug and hold him,†said the lawyer, Pierre-Richard Prosper, a former diplomat who negotiated the release of another American of Iranian descent in 2010. “Her purpose for being there was to be the mother.â€
According to his mother, Mr. Hekmati, 28, appeared to have lost weight and remained in a state of shock about his situation.
“While he is disappointed by the circumstances he finds himself in, he is hopeful that the truth will be known and he will be able to come home very soon,†Mrs. Hekmati said in a prepared statement. She described the Iranian officials she met as “hospitable†and “respectful.â€
Shortly before her trip to Tehran, a court-appointed lawyer in Iran filed an appeal of Mr. Hekmati’s sentence, which under Iranian law can be done only within 20 days of sentencing. The family has since hired a private lawyer in Tehran to represent him.
Mr. Prosper and a public relations company representing Mr. Hekmati’s interests have largely remained tight-lipped about their efforts, rather than mount the kind of public campaign that has often followed the imprisonment of other Americans.
A Web site calling for Mr. Hekmati’s release, FreeAmir.org, has not been updated since January, shortly after the death sentence from the Islamic Revolution Court Branch 15 in Tehran.
“By remaining discreet,†Mr. Prosper said, “you are not ruling out the option to be more public later. A more visible campaign has not been ruled out.â€
The arc of Mr. Hekmati’s case has closely tracked the international war of words over Iran’s nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at developing weapons but which Tehran insists is peaceful.
Mr. Prosper, a Los Angeles-based partner in the firm Arent Fox, said the Hekmati family wanted to avoid having Mr. Hekmati’s situation get caught up in the broader back-and-forth between Iran and the United States or in the speculation over a pre-emptive military strike by Israel.
“We’re interested in making this about Amir, and not about geopolitical issues,†he said.
The next step for the family and its lawyers would be to gain access to the case file to learn exactly which facts underpin the Iranian conviction.
The details have remained murky since Mr. Hekmati was detained in August, when, according to his family, he had been visiting his grandparents in Iran.
Iran did not even confirm that he was in custody until December, when he was put in front of Iranian state television cameras for a national broadcast. In the interview, shown on Dec. 18, Mr. Hekmati was heard to say that he had enlisted in the military out of high school in 2001, had received language and espionage training and had been sent to Iran by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The C.I.A. has declined to comment on the case. The White House and the State Department have denied that Mr. Hekmati, who was born in Flagstaff, Ariz., was a spy and have called for his immediate release.
Iran has a history of arresting Americans and convicting them of spying, and then freeing them once bail money is paid.
“Experience shows that the Iranian officials are very concerned about public relations and how they are reflected in global media,†said Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University. “The more public this becomes, the more political it becomes.â€
Haleh Esfandiari, who was jailed in Iran for more than three months in 2007, said that public attention helped secure her freedom. “Everywhere the Iranian diplomats went, they were asked about me,†she said.
But Ms. Esfandiari, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said that though Mr. Hekmati’s sentence might never be carried out, negotiations over his fate were unlikely to be swift.
“I don’t want to sound pessimistic,†she said, “but this might stretch on for years.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/world/middleeast/american-on-irans-death-row-visited-by-his-mother.html?_r=3