Overview
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio notified Hekmati’s family on Monday of the formal wrongful‑detention designation.
- Kamran Hekmati, a 61-year-old Jewish Iranian-American jeweler from New York, is held in Tehran’s Evin Prison and was sentenced to two years over a past trip to Israel that relatives say occurred 13 years ago.
- Relatives say he was convicted without legal counsel, his appeal is pending, and he is battling aggressive bladder cancer with worsening health.
- The designation places his case with the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, as the State Department tracks six Iranian American detainees but deems only Hekmati and journalist Reza Valizadeh wrongfully detained.
- The move follows Rubio’s February 27 decision labeling Iran a state sponsor of wrongful detention and aligns with U.S. pressure and negotiation tools used in prior detainee cases.