The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian news agency is reporting that a former U.S. Marine convicted of working for the CIA has appealed for a new trial.
The Sunday report by the official ISNA news agency quotes Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, a lawyer of Amir Hekmati, as saying the retrial request comes over a possible mistake by the judge in the case and the “inconsistency” between his alleged crime and its punishment.
Hekmati is a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen born in Arizona who was arrested in 2011. In April, an Iranian appeals court overturned Hekmati’s death sentence for espionage after he appealed.
Another court instead found him guilty of “cooperating with hostile governments.”
His family, now in Michigan, says Hekmati is innocent and only went to Iran to visit his grandparents.
