Family of Former Marine Jailed In Iran Pleads for Prisoner’s Freedom

Family members of Amir Hekmati were wary when the 28-year-old Iranian American told his relatives of his plans to visit Iran.

Hekmati was born in Arizonia, and was raised in Nebraska and Michigan. After high school, he joined the Marines and served in Iraq as a translator.

Hekmati’s travels had never taken him to Iran. And despite the objections of his mother, he set out to visit his grandmothers in Iran in the summer of 2011.

Weeks after arriving, Iranian authorities arrested Hekmati, and accused him of spying for the CIA. He was tried, convicted and — in January — sentenced to death.

That conviction was overturned in March, but Hekmati remains in prison.

Marco Werman talks with Amir Hekmati’s sister, Sarah Hekmati, a school social worker who lives in Lathrup Village, Michigan and Amir Hekmati’s brother-in-law Ramy Kurdi, an orthopedic surgeon.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is “The World”, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH Boston. Going back to visit the family homeland is a dream many immigrants and their children cherish, but that dream turned into a nightmare for Amir Hekmati. He’s an Iranian-American who was raised in Nebraska and Michigan. After high school, he joined the Marines and served in Iraq as a translator. But despite his travels, Hekmati had never visited Iran. So in the summer of 2011, the twenty-eight year old traveled to visit his grandmothers. Weeks after arriving, Iranian authorities arrested him and accused him of spying for the CIA. He was tried, convicted and, in January, sentenced to death. That conviction was overturned in March, but Hekmati remains in prison. His sister, Sarah Hekmati, is a school social worker who lives in Lathrup Village, Michigan. Her husband, Ramy Kurdi, is an orthopedic surgeon. Sarah Hekmati says she understood her brother’s desire to visit his parents’ homeland.

Sarah Hekmati: Being first generation Americans, we always had that void of growing up here, not having relatives, not having family, celebrating holidays just with our parents. And my grandmother from my mother’s side was able to visit us here in the US a few times, and when she would come to the US she was always very connected with us. The last time Amir saw her he was twelve years old and it was very difficult for him to not have that connection with her and he always felt like he wanted to be able to go back and go visit and know who his family was and know who his relatives were.

Werman: Ramy Kurdi, were you or other members in the family wary when Amir said he wanted to go to go to Iran. Did anyone try to convince him not to go?

Ramy Kurdi: We were. His mother advised him not to go just because of the political unrest between America and Iran. Amir has always been an independent person. He petitioned to go in a lawful manner. He entered Iran going through their own process.

Werman: And perhaps the biggest risk was the fact that Iran has had this bad record of Americans getting detained there.

Hekmati: Well, in all fairness, my husband and I have gone and my husband is not Iranian-American. he applied for the paperwork and we had a really good experience going to Iran. I’ve only been to Iran twice in my life and both times it was very positive. The people there really like Americans. We understand there’s political tension between the US and Iran, but a lot of people have taken that risk and come back. And he went through all the appropriate channels through the Iranian Interests Section in Washington DC. To our knowledge, he even informed them that, just to be sure, he is a former Marine, would that be a problem? And they still processed his paperwork.

Werman: How did you learn that he was arrested?

Hekmati: He actually disappeared and for a while we weren’t sure where he was and nobody had formally confirmed that he was in Evin Prison until, I want to say, mid-October.

Werman: Right. And you presumably then heard about the upcoming trial. In December, he appeared on an Iranian television station where he confessed to being a spy sent by the CIA to infiltrate Iranian intelligence.

Hekmati: I mean we were shocked, we were blindsided by that because up until that moment we were receiving phone calls from Amir, again, not directly to us, but to relatives in Iran, and in each phone call he was giving the impression that he was going to be freed, they were just investigating him because of his service in the US military. And so we were waiting for a hearing and we were shocked to find that a video was presented of him confessing to being a spy for the CIA.

Werman: Now, your mother has traveled to Iran three times, including last February, and has seen Amir several times. What sort of communication do you have with Amir now?

Hekmati: We have no communication directly from Amir himself and really for the past six months. My mother, the last time she went was June and she was able to visit him in a visitation room behind a glass and see him for about a half an hour. However, before that she went again in March when they annulled the sentence and she wasn’t granted any visitation.

Kurdi: We know just from the video and from his mother’s visits that he’s emaciated and lost a lot of weight. Knowing Amir for years and years, he’s really a fitness guy. He takes care of himself, he works out, and just judging by his appearance, looking at him from pictures and from his mother’s guess, we think he lost anywhere between thirty, forty pounds, but, overall, we’re hoping his morale is strong. We know that he does communicate to his mother that he food and drink and all the basic necessities, but he is in solitary confinement for over a year.

Werman: The US government denies Amir is a spy. He was a Marine, as we know, but doesn’t appear to have received any military intelligence training. He reportedly once worked for a private security firm I guess, but I’m wondering how much you do know about the details of what Amir was doing when he was in Iran.

Kurdi: We do know everything about what Amir was doing in Iran through Amir himself. He called mother almost daily and update her about where he visited, how excited he was to be in that culture. Even the CIA acknowledged that he was not part of the CIA.

Werman: It sounds like you believe sincerely that he was a pawn caught in the political tension between the US and Iran.

Kurdi: To us, it was obvious because the pictures they had in the video were from his Facebook page. I had the same pictures of him then when he had trained with the military. We knew he did contracting with the military and a lot of those pictures were from his travels. They weren’t taken from secret files, they weren’t taken by spy cameras. So, to us, it’s obvious. To the public it might not be as obvious and that’s why we believe he was used in a political manner, but we’re really not delving in why or how. We understand it’s a sensitive situation. We’re trying to be respectful and diplomatic. We just want him home. His father has an illness that is very serious and we want him home to be here with his father.

Werman: Sarah, your husband just mentioned your father, Ali Hekmati, who teaches in Michigan at a community college has received a difficult diagnosis. Tell us about that.

Hekmati: My father, he’s been diagnosed with brain cancer. The prognosis is grim unfortunately, but it’s something that’s really heart-wrenching considering Amir has no contact with us and he’s unaware that my dad is going through this.

Kurdi: It’s an urgency upon an urgency. We have a former US ambassador, Pierre Prosper is our lawyer and has represented us very well, but with Amir’s father’s brain cancer it became very serious to us that we wanted Iran to know that this is for real, that we want to patient, we are still hoping for diplomacy, but time is very, very limited for us.

Werman: Sarah Hekmati is the sister of imprisoned Iranian-American, Amir Hekmati. Ramy Kurdi is Amir’s brother-in-law. Sarah and Ramy joined us from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Thank you both very much.

Hekmati: Thank you.

Kurdi: Thank you.

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Iranian authorities broadcast Hekmati’s “confession” in the video below.