Related: I Spy Iran
"Iranian Court Begins Trial of U.S. Man" by J. DAVID GOODMAN, December 27, 2011
An Iranian court began hearings on Tuesday in the trial of a man who appeared on state television this month and confessed to being an American spy sent to infiltrate the intelligence services of Iran.
The man, identified as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, an Iranian-American born in Arizona in 1983, repeated his confession to the court, the semiofficial Fars News Agency reported. He said that he was trained in languages and espionage after joining the United States Army following his high school graduation in 2001, and that he had been sent to Iran by the Central Intelligence Agency.
“In this mission I was fooled by the C.I.A., and although I had entered Iran with a mission to infiltrate in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s intelligence systems and to turn into a new source for the C.I.A., I didn’t want to hit a blow to Iran,” he was quoted as telling the judge.
In the television interview, broadcast on Dec. 18, Mr. Hekmati described his mission as one in which he would first gain the trust of the Iranian authorities by handing over information and then penetrate the Iranian intelligence services.
The claims made in the interview and repeated before the Iranian court could not be verified. The C.I.A. declined to comment on the matter when the interview was broadcast.
Basically it's a confirmation; the mouthpiece media isn't going to blow the cover in any event.
Let's see what horse s*** cover story they do come up with.
Mr. Hekmati’s father, who lives in Michigan, told The Associated Press that his son had been visiting his grandmothers in Iran when he was detained.
C'mon!
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry said that its agents had tracked him from Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where a large number of American forces are based, and that they arrested him after he entered Iran.
Accusations by Iran of espionage inside its borders are common, and Iran often announces that it has captured or executed people it says are spies for Western powers and Israel.
That is what should happen to spies; however, being against the death penalty on principle it looks like life in prison, never a chance of parole in my world. What Iran does with them is their business.
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"Iran orders death in US spy case; Retired Marine accused of CIA spying" by Harvey Morris and Rick Gladstone | New York Times, January 10, 2012
(Blog editor notes that story is total rewrite from print, then sighs)
NEW YORK - Iran’s judiciary yesterday sentenced to death an imprisoned American convicted of espionage for the CIA, a punishment that shocked his family and was imposed against a backdrop of increasingly bellicose relations with the United States over the disputed Iranian nuclear program.
My sense here is that once again the Iranians are using him as a bargaining chip to try and forestall military aggression.
The sentence against the American, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, 28, a retired Marine, was likely to become a new point of contention, and possible bargaining leverage, in Iran’s struggle against the West over its nuclear program. A tightening vise of sanctions, which threaten vital oil sales and with them Iran’s economy, has left Tehran feeling besieged and has pushed relations with the United States and its allies to the lowest ebb since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Wouldn't you be feeling that way?
In retaliation, Tehran announced on Sunday that it had begun to enrich uranium at a second site, after having threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, a measure that would severely curtail oil shipments.
See: Huffing and Puffing in the Strait of Hormuz
I am as I try to keep pace with the war propaganda and other things.
The details of the case against Hekmati have been cloaked in secrecy since he was detained in August in Iran, to which his family said he had traveled to visit his grandparents. Official confirmation that he was even in Iranian custody was not provided until last month. The White House and the State Department, noting that Iranian prosecutors have a history of coercing confessions, denied that Hekmati was a spy and called for his immediate release. The CIA declined to comment.
Oh, really? Do they use the same torture techniques as AmeriKa?
You know, the lying, distortions, obfuscations, and omissions are bad enough, but when they toss insults on top.... you wonder why I'm cursing here?
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said, “We strongly condemn such a verdict and will work with our partners to convey our condemnation to the Iranian government.’’
AmeriKan states have the death penalty and carry out executions, right?
Yeah, the word hypocrites did come to mind as they pull the switch.
Iran has a record of arresting and convicting Americans suspected of spying, then freeing them later after bail money has been paid.
Oh, so now it is an extortion racket.
But rights activists said Hekmati’s case was the first in the nearly 33-year history of estranged relations with the United States in which Iran’s Islamic authorities had ordered the execution of a US citizen.
“This whole case is very politically motivated,’’ said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, an advocacy group based in New York that has been monitoring Hekmati’s case. “There’s absolutely no evidence against him.’’
Yes, it is very much like the instigating FBI informant and all the patsy plot set-ups that are given show trials in court, dear 'murkn.
In a statement released by Hekmati’s parents and posted on a new website, www.FreeAmir.org, his mother, Behnaz, and father, Ali, said they were “shocked and terrified by the news that our son, Amir, has been sentenced to death.’’
It's the life he willingly chose.
Denying that he was a spy, the parents said, “We believe that this verdict is the result of a process that was neither transparent nor fair.’’ They added, “His very life is being exploited for political gain.’’
Now he knows how all the Muslims imprisoned by AmeriKa and its allies around the world feel.
Well, I don't want to say all; I'm sure some are guilty of actual crimes. My point is on the "terror" front, the staged and scripted propaganda that requires secret military courts with secret evidence gathered from secret prisons using secret torture, 'er, interrogation techniques -- then exploited for political gain.
Iran’s official news media portrayed Hekmati’s prosecution and punishment in totally different terms, saying he had admitted to investigators that he had been sent to Iran by the CIA after a decade of training and that he had been assigned to infiltrate the Intelligence Ministry. Accounts in the state-run media called his presence in Iran part of an “intricate American plot to carry out espionage activities in the Islamic republic.’’
Look, everyone knows U.S., British, and Israeli intelligence have infested Iran. That's just the way the world is once you get through the mouthpiece media bulls***.
Hekmati, who was born in Flagstaff, Ariz., and spent part of his youth in Flint, Mich., where some members of his family still live, has not been allowed to communicate with relatives or legal counsel in Iran or the United States.
Must feel like a stay at Gitmo, although past actions would suggest he is being treated better.
The death sentence, ordered by the Islamic Revolution Court Branch 15 in Tehran, can be appealed within 20 days. But Iranian specialists in the United States said the sentence might never be carried out.
So it's just another seed to plant animosity against Iran in the minds of Americans.
The court’s order suggested that Iran was willing to go to new lengths to increase its leverage in dealing with what it views as US-led hostility over the nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes but the United States, the European Union, and Israel regard as a cloak to attain a nuclear weapon.
Over the past few years, Iran has endured four rounds of Security Council economic sanctions, the mysterious assassinations of its nuclear scientists, computerized sabotage of its uranium enrichment centrifuges, and the death of its top missile expert in an unexplained explosion after having ignored repeated demands by the United Nations to stop enriching uranium.
No, not really.
Oh, right; I keep forgetting I'm reading a New York Times turd.
Now Iran is confronting the possibility of a preemptive Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities, a threatened EU oil embargo, and a new US law that could penalize buyers of Iran’s petroleum, its most important export, if the uranium enrichment is not stopped.
Yes, that DOES SEEM TO BE WHERE WE are HEADING!
You know, on behalf of the exhausted, war-weary, and bankrupt American people I say ISRAEL CAN FIGHT THIS ONE ITSELF!
As for the agenda-pushing, war-promoting media, you can shove this s***. That's all.
The accumulated effects have ravaged Iran’s economy and left the government feeling under assault. It has responded with an offer to restart talks on the nuclear issue, which Turkey has agreed to host. But Iran has coupled its diplomacy with acts of defiance, naval war games, and threats to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, a critical Persian Gulf waterway for Middle East oil shipments, should the West restrict Iran’s oil sales. Petroleum industry analysts said the price of oil, now hovering above $100 a barrel, could double if Iran carried out that threat.
As I remarked in an earlier post, AmeriKa's politicians don' give a s***, and it would be a win-win for neo-con war-makers and the oil companies. We is going to war soon. Five years of blogging to prevent such a thing and I feel I've failed. All that is left now is to catalog the horror for history's sake and hope a better world emerges on the other side.
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy group critical of Iran’s government, called the sentencing of Hekmati “part of what the Iranians and the United States are doing right now to position themselves for the coming negotiations in Turkey.’’
Parsi noted that unlike other cases of espionage against Americans, notably those of an Iranian-American journalist in 2009 and three US hikers who were seized on the Iran-Iraq border, who were all freed, this case involves a man, Hekmati, with a military background.
Related: U.S. Reporter Spied on Iran For USrael
Hiking Out on Iran
I've got to get moving myself.
Parsi also said that, like many Americans of Iranian descent, Hekmati had to get an Iranian passport to expedite his travel to Iran. But the Iranian passport means that, in Iran’s view, he is an Iranian, even though he was born and raised in the United States and has a US passport. Iran does not recognize dual citizens.
“In this case, the US ability to protect its citizens is very limited,’’ Parsi said. “I do hope some sort of way out is found.’’
In a video broadcast last month on Iranian state television, Hekmati identified himself as an Army soldier. But the Marine Corps said Hekmati, who is identified in its records as Amir Nema Hekmati, served in the Marines between 2001 and 2005, the Associated Press reported.
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Related: Iran sentences ex-Marine to death in CIA case
US condemns Iranian death sentence for American
Video game maker linked to US prisoner in Iran
WTF?
