In Iran, death sentence reversed for ex-Marine

TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian appeals court has overturned a death sentence of a former U.S. Marine convicted of working for the CIA, instead sentencing him to 10 years in prison, his lawyer said Saturday.

Amir Hekmati, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen born in Arizona, was arrested in August 2011, then tried, convicted and sentenced to death for spying.

Iranian prosecutors said Hekmati received special training and served at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before heading to Iran as a spy. Hekmati’s family and the U.S. government repeatedly has denied the 31-year-old is a spy, instead saying he traveled to Iran to visit his grandmother.

Iran’s Supreme Court annulled the death sentence after Hekmati appealed, ordering a retrial in 2012. The country’s Revolutionary Court then overturned his conviction for espionage, his lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei said. Instead, it charged him with “cooperating with hostile governments” and sentenced him to 10 years in prison, Tabatabaei said. Iran’s Appeals Court “recently” upheld the verdict, the lawyer said, a decision that is final. Tabatabaei said he is seeking Hekmati’s conditional freedom from Evin prison, north of the capital, Tehran. Hekmati has been behind bars since his arrest.

“According to law, if someone serves one-third of his conviction period and within that time, shows an acceptable behavior in jail, he can be entitled to conditional freedom,” Tabatabaei said. “One-third of his imprisonment will end around September and October.”

Conditional freedom could allow Hekmati to leave the country, depending on what a court decides. That could allow Hekmati to visit his father Ali Hekmati, a professor at Mott Community College in Flint, Mich., who family members say has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and recently suffered a stroke.

Tabatabaei said a doctor treating Hekmati’s father at a U.S. hospital has sent him a letter asking the ex-Marine’s leave on bond to meet his ailing father

“We have requested that if the prosecutor agrees, Amir can go on leave with an appropriate bail so that he could go and visit his father,” Tabatabaei said.