A United Nations panel has urged Iran to free a US citizen jailed on espionage charges, saying his trial was not in line with international standards of fairness.
The UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention faulted Iran for not charging Amir Hekmati for six months after his August 2011 arrest and for letting his lawyer see him only briefly, without access to the case file.
The panel said that Iran’s “non-observance of international norms” in the case “is of such gravity as to give the deprivation of liberty of Mr Hekmati an arbitrary character.”
“The Working Group believes that, taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the adequate remedy would be to release of Mr Hekmati and accord him an enforceable right to compensation,” the panel added.
The document said that Iran, which is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, did not respond to requests for comment.
The opinion was issued in August and sent in late November to Hekmati’s family, which shared the document recently with AFP.