A member of the Great Neck Estates zoning board is being held in an Iranian prison for visiting Israel.
Long Island Press archives
An Iranian American Jewish man from Great Neck has been held in an Iranian prison since July.
Iranian authorities charged Kamran Hekmati, 70, for traveling to Israel 13 years ago, members of his family told The New York Times. He was sentenced to four years in prison in late August.
Hekmati, a Great Neck Estates resident and a member of the village’s zoning board, owns a jewelry business based in New York City.
Hekmati visited Israel over a decade ago to celebrate his son’s bar mitzvah, his family members said. He is now being held in Tehran’s Evin prison.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court cited a law that bans Iranians from visiting Israel, family members said. Hekmati holds dual citizenship and was born in Iran, but immigrated to the United States at the age of 13. He traveled to Iran to visit family using his Iranian passport, as Iranians are obliged to do, The New York Times reported.
Iran’s government reduced the punishment for traveling to Israel to two years in prison and cut Hekmati’s sentence in half in September, members of his family said.
A lawyer for the family filed an appeal, but a court date has not yet been set, family members said. They told the New York Times they hope they hope Iran releases him on humanitarian grounds because he was not involved in politics, had visited Israel for personal reasons and was in poor health, fighting aggressive bladder cancer.
Hekmati’s imprisonment was the main topic at a Great Neck Estates Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, Nov. 10. Mayor William Warner read a letter from U.S. Rep. Thomas R. Suozzi, who represents New York’s 3rd Congressional District, requesting that the State Department “urgently work towards the release of Mr. Hekmati on humanitarian grounds.”
“The case is deeply alarming to my constituents, particularly within the large Persian community on Long Island, and among my colleagues and the government of the Village of Great Neck Estates,” Suozzi’s letter said.
Warner said he would post a copy of Suozzi’s letter on the village’s website and that he will reach out to the Iranian-American Jewish Federation of New York for more support.