Iran’s Judiciary spokesman says the Iranian Supreme Court has dismissed a lower court death sentence for an Iranian-American man accused of spying for the CIA.
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told reporters on Monday that the defendant has objected to the verdict handed down by the lower court and the Supreme Court has nullified the verdict, ordering a retrial.
On December 17, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced the arrest of a CIA spy of Iranian descent, foiling an intricate US plot to carry out espionage activities in the Islamic Republic.
In a televised confession broadcast by IRIB, the American operative, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, said he joined the US Army in 2001 and underwent decade-long intelligence training.
He added that he was sent to the US-run Bagram Airbase in eastern Afghanistan and given access to classified intelligence before flying to Tehran.
According to his father, Hekmati served with the US Marines as an Arabic translator and travelled to Iran some four months before his arrest. He added that Amir was born in the State of Arizona in southwestern US and joined the Marines after receiving his high school diploma.
On January 9, Tehran’s Revolution Court sentenced Hekmati to death after finding him guilty of collaboration with the US government and its intelligence agency, the CIA, against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
He was charged with attempting to infiltrate Iran’s intelligence apparatus in an effort to implicate the Islamic Republic in sponsoring terrorism. The defendant was hired by the CIA in May 2009 to carry out espionage operations in Iran.
——Agencies