Amir Hekmati (credit: FreeAmir)
As part of a prisoner swap this weekend, 32-year-old Iranian-American game developer Amir Mizra Hekmati has been released from Iranian custody after over four years of imprisonment. The US State Department confirmed yesterday that Hekmati and three other Iranian prisoners had arrived safely in Geneva, en route to a military base in Germany.
Hekmati, who was born and raised in the US, was first imprisoned in August 2011 after he purportedly confessed to high-level espionage for the US government. According to the confession, Hekmati's company, Kuma Reality Games, was working with the CIA to release "games with the aim of manipulating public opinion in the Middle East. The goal of the company in question was to convince the people of Iran and the people of the entire world that whatever the US does in other countries is a good measure."
Hekmati was initially sentenced to death in 2012, but that sentence was overturned by a higher court later that year. He was resentenced to a ten-year term after a secret trial in which Hekmati was not allowed to present a defense, according to his family.
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