- Iran: Eight Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges
- Daughter of late Iranian president jailed for ‘spreading lies’ - IRAN: Annual report on the death penalty 2016 - Taheri Facing the Death Penalty Again - Dedicated team seeking return of missing agent in Iran - Iran Arrests 2, Seizes Bibles During Catholic Crackdown
- Trump to welcome Netanyahu as Palestinians fear U.S. shift
- Details of Iran nuclear deal still secret as US-Tehran relations unravel - Will Trump's Next Iran Sanctions Target China's Banks? - Don’t ‘tear up’ the Iran deal. Let it fail on its own. - Iran Has Changed, But For The Worse - Iran nuclear deal ‘on life support,’ Priebus says
- Female Activist Criticizes Rouhani’s Failure to Protect Citizens
- Iran’s 1st female bodybuilder tells her story - Iranian lady becomes a Dollar Millionaire on Valentine’s Day - Two women arrested after being filmed riding motorbike in Iran - 43,000 Cases of Child Marriage in Iran - Woman Investigating Clinton Foundation Child Trafficking KILLED!
- Senior Senators, ex-US officials urge firm policy on Iran
- In backing Syria's Assad, Russia looks to outdo Iran - Six out of 10 People in France ‘Don’t Feel Safe Anywhere’ - The liberal narrative is in denial about Iran - Netanyahu urges Putin to block Iranian power corridor - Iran Poses ‘Greatest Long Term Threat’ To Mid-East Security |
Monday 05 March 2012Iran court overturns US ex-Marine death term
Iran's Supreme Court has overturned a death sentence for spying handed down to former US Marine Amir Mirzai Hekmati, Iranian media reported on Monday, quoting a top judiciary official. "The sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court ... The case has been sent back" to the court for retrial, prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei told a press conference, ISNA news agency reported without elaborating. Another news agency, Fars, similarly reported Mohseni Ejei's comments but it too gave no further details. Hekmati, an ex-Marine born in the United States to an Iranian immigrant family, was sentenced to death on January 9 by a Revolutionary Court in Tehran. Hekmati, who also holds Iranian nationality, was "sentenced to death for cooperating with a hostile nation, membership of the CIA and trying to implicate Iran in terrorism," according to Iranian media. The 28-year-old Hekmati was shown on Iranian state television in December saying in Farsi and English that he was an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency sent to infiltrate Iran's intelligence ministry. Iranian officials said his cover was blown by agents for Iran who spotted him at the US-run Bagram military air base in neighbouring Afghanistan. But his family in the United States told US media he had travelled to Iran to visit his grandmothers and was not a spy. The New York Times had reported in February that his mother, Benhaz Hekmati, travelled alone to Tehran in late January and was able to visit her son in prison for an hour on three different occasions before returning to the United States. Hekmati was tried as an Iranian citizen because Iran does not recognise dual nationality. In his sole trial hearing on December 27, prosecutors relied on Hekmati's "confession" to say he tried to penetrate the intelligence ministry by posing as a disaffected former US soldier with classified information to give. The United States has called for the release of Hekmati, with US officials saying the allegation he was sent by the CIA to infiltrate the Iranian intelligence ministry was false. The US State Department said Iran has not permitted diplomats from the Swiss embassy in Tehran -- which handles US interests in the absence of US-Iran ties -- to see Hekmati. Iran has detained and released a number of Americans after imprisoning and convicting them of spying, although there was no precedent for a death sentence being carried out since the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the pro-Western shah. Three other Americans, who were held in Iran on spying charges after hiking in 2009 along the unmarked Iran-Iraq border, were eventually released -- one in 2010 and the other two in September 2011, despite being sentenced to eight years in prison. Source: AFP |