Story highlights
At least three Americans are detained in Iran
A fourth vanished on a trip to Iran
News of a nuclear deal raises questions about their fate
Amir Hekmati always made sure his workout buddies had some fuel in their system before hitting the gym. His close friend Arash Ansari would sometimes skip lunch, but that didn’t fly with Hekmati.
“It’s very important – you’re a growing boy,” Ansari remembers his friend saying.
Hekmati would grab the blender and make his buddy a shake.
“It was just one of his weekly ‘Amir things’ that I almost looked forward to,” Ansari said. “I kind of skipped lunch sometimes just to hear him say that to me.”
Hekmati – a former Marine – is one of three Americans the U.S. government has acknowledged are being detained in Iran. A fourth, Robert Levinson, was reported missing after a visit to Iran.
With the announcement of a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, their families and friends hope that the fight to free their loved ones won’t be ignored. They include Naghmeh Abedini, whose husband, Saeed Abedini, is a Christian pastor imprisoned in Iran.
“With the announcement of a deal and yet silence as to the fate of Saeed and the other Americans held hostage in Iran, their fate lies now in the hands of Congress,” she said in a statement, pleading with Congress to keep the detained Americans in mind as it reviews the deal.
“My children have desperately missed the loving embrace of their father for the last three years of their lives. They have grown up almost half of their lives without their father,” she said. “Please help us ensure the remainder of their childhood includes both a mother and a father.”
Hekmati’s family also released a statement after the nuclear deal was announced.
“Amir is an innocent man who traveled to Iran to visit family, yet there is no denying that his imprisonment has been prolonged pending an outcome in these negotiations,” the statement said. “While Amir himself has said that he should not be part of any nuclear deal, his immediate release would demonstrate a strong gesture of good faith to the international community.”
Ali Rezaian absorbed news of the nuclear agreement Tuesday with thoughts of his brother, Jason, a Washington Post reporter who remains locked up in Iran.
“Jason is completely innocent of all charges and it is inhumane for him to still be held behind bars after nearly a year,” Ali Rezaian said in a statement. “We are hopeful that with the agreement now in place the Iranian courts will conclude this process swiftly and affirm Jason’s innocence so we can bring him home and make our family whole again.”
Christine Levinson implored the United States and Iran to keep working together – “with the same sense of urgency” they applied to reaching a nuclear deal – to free her husband, Bob, a former FBI agent who vanished in Iran in 2007.
“Bob has been held against his will for eight years,” she said. “This nightmare must end.”
Their son, David, said the family desperately wants his father home.
“What we believe is that this deal is not the end of discussions between the Iranian government and the United States government, but merely the beginning,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday.
A month of mercy
Amir Hekmati has been detained since 2011 on charges that he was spying for the United States – charges he flatly denies.
He has lost nearly 30 pounds and has trouble breathing, according to his brother-in-law. He might have a lung infection, and his family worries that if Hekmati is not treated, he could contract tuberculosis.
“I can’t understand how four years have gone by and we are just now getting the most basic attention on his case,” Ansari said. “I don’t know – I can’t understand – how Amir has not been a priority. He should’ve been released, you know, six months into his detainment, at most. And now we’re approaching four years.”
Hekmati’s family hopes that having Iranian and American diplomats already in rooms together, in timing underscored by the magnanimous spirit that embodies the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, will be enough to secure Amir’s release.
Hekmati’s sister, Sarah, and her husband, Ramy Kurdi, traveled to Vienna, where the nuclear negotiations were being held, to make sure Amir Hekmati’s case wasn’t forgotten.