The family of an American who has been sentenced to death by Iran on espionage charges has hired a prominent Los Angeles-based lawyer who successfully negotiated the release of an Iranian-American businessman from a Tehran prison less than two years ago, a business associate of the lawyer said Tuesday.
The lawyer, Pierre-Richard Prosper, was formally retained by the family of the condemned American, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, in the past 10 days, well before the Iranian judiciarys announcement on Monday that Mr. Hekmati, a 28-year-old former Marine, was guilty of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency and would be executed. The ruling is subject to appeal.
Mr. Hekmatis incarceration, trial, conviction and death sentence shocked his family, which contends he is an innocent political pawn, and came against a backdrop of Irans increasingly bellicose relations with the United States over the disputed Iranian nuclear program.
The case has escalated into a new point of contention and possible bargaining leverage in Irans struggle to counter the tightening vise of Western sanctions because of the nuclear program, which are threatening Irans economy and have worsened its already estranged ties with the West.
Richard A. Grenell, a principal at Capitol Media Partners, a Los Angeles communications and public relations firm who works with Mr. Prosper, confirmed in a telephone interview that the Hekmati family had retained Mr. Prosper, a development first reported by CNN. Mr. Grenell declined to comment further. But the familys decision to hire such well-connected legal counsel suggested it was undertaking a path that would go well beyond the Iranian judicial system to save Mr. Hekmati.
Mr. Prosper is a former ambassador-at large for war crimes under the Bush administration, as well as a prosecutor for the Rwanda war crimes tribunal at the Hague. Mr. Grenell was the director of communications for the United States Mission to the United Nations under the Bush administration.
Both are longtime associates who successfully collaborated to free another American client of Mr. Prospers, Reza Taghavi, a businessman, from Tehrans notorious Evin Prison in October 2010 after Mr. Taghavi had spent more than two years there on suspicion of having ties to a domestic Iranian opposition group. But unlike Mr. Hekmati, Mr. Taghavi was never formally charged.
Western pressure on Tehran over the nuclear program seemed to deepen on Tuesday when European Union foreign ministers said they would move forward a meeting to decide on an oil embargo, news reports said. A statement said the gathering would now be held on Jan. 23 a week earlier than initially scheduled.
The details of the case against Mr. Hekmati have been cloaked in secrecy since he was detained in August in Iran, to which his family said he had traveled to visit his grandparents. Official confirmation that he was even in Iranian custody was not provided until last month. The White House and the State Department, noting that Iranian prosecutors have a history of coercing confessions, denied on Monday that Mr. Hekmati was a spy and called for his immediate release. The C.I.A. declined to comment.
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