US-Iranian Kamran Hekmati Released From Tehran Prison But Can't Leave Country

An Iranian-American citizen, Kamran Hekmati, has been released from Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, sources have told RFE/RL's Radio Farda, but he is unable to leave the country due to a travel ban. The release has not yet been officially confirmed by Iranian authorities. Hekmati, who was designated as a wrongfully detained person by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March, is believed to have been released on September 5. His release was also reported by The Jerusalem Post, an Israeli media outlet which cited Iranian sources. The 71-year-old traveled to Iran to visit relatives on his Iranian passport in May 2025 and was detained by the authorities two months later. Tehran's Revolutionary Court subsequently sentenced him to four years in prison for having traveled to Israel for a religious ceremony over a decade earlier. Holders of Iranian passports are barred from traveling to Israel. His sentence was later reduced to two years after a change in the law governing such travel. Hekmati's family has repeatedly raised concerns over his health, saying he suffers from aggressive bladder cancer and has been denied access to proper specialized treatment in detention. The case is one of several involving Iranian-American dual nationals caught up in Iran's use of arbitrary detention as diplomatic leverage against the West, a practice critics have called "hostage diplomacy." Dena Karari, another Iranian-American, was briefly detained in Shiraz in 2024 and released on bail but was barred from leaving Iran for about 19 months. She faced accusations including "collaboration with a hostile government" and espionage but was eventually allowed to leave the country in July this year. Shortly after her departure, a Zahedan court convicted her in absentia and sentenced her to five years in prison. Reza Valizadeh, a former Radio Farda correspondent, remains imprisoned at Evin. In a recorded phone call from inside the prison this past June, he appealed to the US government to secure medical assistance for himself and other detained Americans, saying four US citizens held at Evin were suffering from various illnesses without access to real medical care. Valizadeh resigned from RFE/RL in November 2022, returned to Iran in March 2024 to see his family, and was arrested that September. He was convicted of "collaborating with the hostile American government" and sentenced to 10 years in prison, along with a ban on residing in Tehran and neighboring provinces, a travel ban, and a two-year prohibition on joining political parties or groups. His appeal was rejected.