Iran sentences ex-Marine to death in CIA case:
former U.S. Marine interpreter arrested while on a trip to visit his Iranian grandmothers has been sentenced to death as a CIA spy, state radio reported Monday, in a case likely to become a new flashpoint in the escalating tensions between Tehran’s defiance over its nuclear program and Washington’s efforts to impose more crippling sanctions. It was the first time an American citizen has been sentenced to death in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
“We are seriously concerned regarding the death sentence, secrecy, and continued lack of transparency surrounding the prosecution,” said Hadi Ghaemi, a spokesman for the New York-based group. The espionage charges against Arizona-born Amir Mirzaei Hekmati were similar to previous prosecutions against Americans who were sentenced to jail time and later freed, including an Iranian-American journalist in 2009 and three U.S. citizens detained along the Iraq border. Iranian prosecutors, however, had stressed Hekmati’s links to the U.S. military in calling for capital punishment.
