The U.S. government has officially designated Kamran Hekmati, a Jewish Iranian-American jeweler from Long Island who is being held in Iran, as “wrongfully detained,” his family announced.

Hekmati traveled to Iran last year to visit relatives but was arrested and has remained imprisoned since then. He is currently being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison and is believed to be among roughly a half-dozen Americans currently detained in the country.

As YWN reported in 2025, Iranian authorities jailed Hekmati after learning that he had traveled to Israel 13 years earlier for his son’s bar mitzvah.

According to the family, the U.S. State Department notified them Monday that Hekmati’s case has now been officially designated as wrongful detention. The move transfers responsibility for the case to the Special Presidential Office of Hostage Affairs, which handles negotiations for Americans held abroad.

“This designation is an official recognition by the US Government that Kamran is being held on false charges in an effort by the Iranians to leverage the US Government,” said his cousin, Shohreh Nowfar, in a statement.

The designation, she added, “reassures us that our government has our back in the effort to get Kamran home safely.”

Mr. Hekmati, who immigrated to the United States at age 13, traveled to Iran using his Iranian passport, as required by law. Iran does not recognize dual citizenship, allowing it to prosecute Americans of Iranian descent under domestic law while denying them consular access.

Hekmati’s relatives describe him as a devoted husband, father of four, and new grandfather who built a successful jewelry business in Manhattan’s Diamond District. “Kamran was the glue of the family,” said his cousin Shohreh Nowfar from California. “It’s so cruel that the country he loved so much — and kept returning to — has now imprisoned him.”

Hekmati had visited Iran multiple times without incident. But when he attempted to leave Tehran this May, security forces seized his passport, interrogated him for weeks, and demanded access to his phone and social-media accounts. In July, shortly after a U.S.-brokered cease-fire between Iran and Israel, agents raided his relative’s home and arrested him.

He was convicted without legal counsel, relatives said. Only after sentencing were they able to hire a lawyer, who has since filed an appeal that remains pending. The family hopes he will be released on humanitarian grounds: Hekmati is battling aggressive bladder cancer and, they say, is in deteriorating health.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)