Congressman: Hekmati in good shape after release from Iran

STAFF/REUTERS Amir Hekmati (center), flanked by U.S. Congressman Dan Kildee (l.) and brother-in-law Ramy Kurdi, speaks with media in Landstuhl, Germany, on Tuesday for the first time since his release.

The New School community was thrilled to hear the news that Jason and two other Americans (Marine veteran Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini) were freed in a prisoner swap with Iran Saturday. “I feel alive for the first time”, Hekmati said on January 19 in his first public comments since his release.

Hekmati said spending more than four years in prison took a toll on him; he said his fellow Americans were also ecstatic, happy and anxious to get home.

Asked how Hekmati felt about being part of a swap, when he had said he did not want to be part of any such deal because he was innocent of the charges against him, Kildee acknowledged that Hekmati “felt it was critical he did not accept as part of his freedom any concession” but said the diplomatic outcome of the agreement was fair. Iran state television has reported that the government has released several dual-national prisoners.

Hekmati reunited with his family in Germany Sunday after being held prisoner in Iran. He spoke outside the U.S. Army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where he, Rezaian, and Abedini had flown Sunday for treatment. He was found guilty past year and sentenced to a prison term, but the secretive court disclosed neither the specific charges on which he was convicted nor the length of the term.“I want people to know that physically, Im feeling good, ” Rezaian said during meetings Monday with The Washington Posts executive editor, Martin Baron, and foreign editor, Douglas Jehl. “He went to visit his family and disappeared”. After his arrest, family members say they were told to keep the matter quiet. His family is in the Flint area.

Hekmati and the two other freed prisoners at Landstuhl are voluntarily undergoing a battery of medical tests and psychological evaluations, a process that can take five to 10 days.

“To actually meet him and see what sort of gentle and kind person he is”, Kildee said, “I just told him how proud I was of him, that he endured this ordeal with incredible dignity”.

During his imprisonment he was often held in solitary confinement, according to Kildee, and his family received word at times that conditions at the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran where he was held included blackouts, a lack of heat, rat infestations and a diet of parasite-filled lentils and rice. And he said there wasn’t a big lead-up to his release: “They just came one morning and said, ‘Pack your things'”. “But what amazed me about my time with him last night is his spirit – if the Republican Guard thought they’d break the spirit of this guy, they failed miserably”. “It can be shorter, but having been in isolation, and mental torture for three and a half years, I don’t think they’re going to jump out of here real quick”, he said.

Trevithick’s parents said he was freed after 40 days at a prison in Tehran.