kkakatayin
Forum Newcomer
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2011
- Messages
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http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/iran-sentences-former-u-marine-death-151159772.html The State Department said Monday that it was working to confirm Iranian state media reports that an Iran court had sentenced an American citizen, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, to death on charges of spying for the CIA. "If true, we strongly condemn this verdict," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a press statement Monday. "Allegations that Hekmati either worked for, or was sent to Iran by the CIA, are simply untrue." Hekmati "has 20 days to appeal the court's decision," the Washington Post's Thomas Erdbrink reported from Tehran. Hekmati, 28, a former U.S. Marine Arabic language translator in Iraq, was born in Flagstaff, Arizona of Iranian descent and raised in Michigan. His family in Michigan, former colleagues and American officials say Hekmati never served in the CIA and was in Iran to visit his grandmother. Hekmati's parents said they "are shocked and terrified" by the news, his mother Behnaz Hekmati wrote at the website the family set up to advocate for Amir's release, FreeAmir. "We believe that this verdict is the result of a process that was neither transparent nor fair."
