The United States has condemned the death sentence handed to Amir Mirzai Hekmati, the U.S. citizen of Iranian origin accused of espionage, saying the charges against him are “false.”
Iran has accused Hekmati of being trained at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then entering Iran in order to infiltrate its intelligence and relay information back to U.S. forces.
However, U.S. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor denied the accusation, saying: “The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions, and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons.”
Hekmati has been charged with collaborating with “hostile countries” and with belonging to the CIA and trying to implicate Iran in terrorism.
In the U.S., Hekmati’s father told the media that his son is innocent and that he had gone to Iran to visit his grandmother.
Amir Mirzai Hekmati, who was born in the United States, is a former U.S. Marine.
He was shown on Iranian national television “confessing” to the charges Iran brought against him.
