NEW YORK (AP) — An Iranian American jeweler from New York has been released from prison in Iran, but he is prohibited from leaving the country, according to his family and federal officials.
Kamran Hekmati was let out of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on Sept. 5 after completing about half of a two-year sentence, his family recently wrote on a website advocating for his release.
The family said they are also “desperately afraid for his health and well-being”
as he requires regular medical checkups to ensure his bladder cancer doesn’t relapse.
“The Iranian regime couldn’t care less,” the family wrote of Hekmati's medical challenges. “Much like other wrongful detention cases in Iran, Kamran appears to be caught up in Iran’s traditional approach of detaining Americans to obtain political concessions from the US.”
Representatives for the family and the federal government didn’t say where Hekmati, who turned 62 in August, is currently staying in Iran.
But Shohreh Nowfar, Hekmati’s cousin in California, said Friday that the family is “excited” and hopeful his passport can be returned soon so he can leave the country, which has been at war with the U.S. and Israel for more than six months now.
“We continue to hope this is a signal from the Iranian side as to their willingness to send Kamran home,” added Kieran Ramsey, chief investigative officer at Global Reach, a U.S. nonprofit working on Hekmati’s case.
The Iranian American, who is also Jewish, owns a jewelry business in Manhattan’s Diamond District and has lived with his family for years in Great Neck Estates, on suburban Long Island.
He was arrested by Iranian authorities last July after having his passport seized while trying to fly out of the airport in Tehran that May.
Hekmati’s family says he was charged under an Iranian law that bans Iranian citizens from visiting Israel within the last 10 years. But they maintain his last trip to Israel was 13 years ago -- prior to the passage of the law -- for his son’s bar mitzvah.
“Mr. Hekmati did nothing wrong,” said U.S. Rep. Thomas Suozzi, a Long Island Democrat who advocated for the State Department to officially designate Hekmati as wrongfully detained earlier this year. “We cannot rest until he is reunited with his family.”
The State Department similarly called on Iran to lift its so-called exit ban so Hekmati can return to the U.S. It also said the country should “immediately release” Iranian American journalist Reza Valizadeh and other Americans “unjustly detained in Iran.”
Valizadeh's lawyer, Ryan Fayhee, declined to comment Friday, citing the risks his client could face behind bars.
But in recent months, the journalist has sent voice messages describing conditions inside Evin prison, a high-security facility that holds many of the Islamic Republic’s political prisoners.
In an August recording, Valizadeh, who has been imprisoned since 2024, said prison officials have not allowed his family to visit for the past five months. He also said medical care is “almost non-existent,” save for the most basic medications.
“Diseases that were eradicated decades ago have returned inside the prison, including pulmonary and gastrointestinal tuberculosis,” he said in the voice message, which was shared by CBS.
Valizadeh also said that prior to his release, Hekmati had been granted a medical furlough for cancer treatment but was ordered back to prison after about a month, rather than being allowed to begin chemotherapy.
Like Hekmati, Valizadeh has also been officially designated wrongfully detained by the U.S. government. He was arrested after returning to Iran to visit his elderly parents and charged with collaborating with the U.S. government.
Valizadeh obtained U.S. citizenship in 2022 while working in Washington, D.C., for Radio Farda, the Persian-language arm of Radio Free Europe, which receives U.S. government funding. He is among at least nine reporters currently jailed in Iran, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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