An Iranian-American jeweler from New York was released today from a prison in Iran but banned from leaving the country.
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12/09/2026
by
Lusa
Kamran Hekmati left Evin prison in Tehran on September 5, after completing about half a two-year prison sentence, his family, concerned about his health, reported.
“The Iranian regime could not care less,” the family wrote about Hekmati’s health problems.
“Like other cases of wrong arrests in Iran, Kamran seems to have been caught by the traditional Iranian approach to detaining US citizens to achieve US political concessions,” they said.
Representatives of the family and the federal government did not advance where Hekmati, who turned 62 in August, is in Iran.
But her cousin Shohreh Nowfar, resident in the State of California, said today that the family is “excited” and hopeful that her passport will be returned soon, so that she can leave the country.
Hekmati, who is Jewish, was arrested in July, after having had his passport seized in May, when he was preparing to leave the country by Tehran airport.
His family said he was accused on the basis of the law prohibiting Iranian citizens from visiting Israel in force in the last 10 years. But the family guarantees that the last time he was there was 13 years ago, before the law existed.