Great Neck Man in Iran Designated Wrongful Detainee

The State Department has finally done the right thing by designating Kamran Hekmati, a 70-year-old Great Neck resident imprisoned in Iran for more than 300 days, a “wrongful detainee.” Now comes the harder part: getting him home.

Hekmati, a Jewish-American who was born in Iran, has been locked inside Evin Prison for more than 10 months. Anyone familiar with that facility knows it is not simply a prison. It is where the Iranian regime sends people it wants to break. Hekmati is 70 years old and suffering from bladder cancer. Every day matters.

The wrongful detainee designation, triggered under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, directs the U.S. government to deploy diplomatic, legal and economic tools to secure his release. It took far too long to get here, but credit where it’s due: Congressman Tom Suozzi worked this case hard. In November, Suozzi joined with Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney to write Secretary of State Marco Rubio directly, demanding action and requesting the classification. That’s the kind of bipartisan constituent advocacy that is supposed to define this job, and both representatives delivered.

“This is a clear, cut-and-dry case of wrongful detention,” Suozzi said. “Mr. Hekmati and the numerous other Americans being imprisoned in Iran are not being held for any crimes they committed, but because they’re American.”

He’s right. The stated reason for Hekmati’s arrest is almost cartoonishly pretextual. Iranian authorities reportedly cited his attendance at his son’s bar mitzvah in Israel 13 years ago as justification for detention. Under Iranian law, the restriction applies to visits within the previous 10 years. By their own rules, they had no grounds. Hekmati had traveled to Iran multiple times before this trip without incident. He went for family business, the same as he always had.

What makes this case particularly striking is Hekmati’s background in the Great Neck community. Great Neck Mayor Pedram Bral, himself a native of Iran, described Hekmati as a beloved and active member of both the broader community and the local Jewish community. Bral pointed out something few would expect: Hekmati had actually been an advocate for Iran within Great Neck’s Persian community.

“Believe it or not, he was an advocate for Iran, which I found very surprising, and for him now to be held hostage, it’s ironic,” Bral said back in November.

Hekmati owns a jewelry business in New York City and served on the Great Neck Estates zoning board. He is, by every account, a contributing member of his community with deep roots in the area. The regime in Tehran apparently does not care about any of that.

The complicating factor now is the ongoing military conflict. The war the United States and Israel have launched against Iran creates real uncertainty around any diplomatic channel that might otherwise be used to negotiate Hekmati’s release. Suozzi, who has expressed sympathy with President Trump’s decision to go to war while raising procedural concerns, acknowledged the stakes directly.

“This is a promising step,” Suozzi said of the designation. “We now need the administration to bring him home as soon as possible. It could not be more urgent.”

He’s not wrong about the urgency. A 70-year-old man with cancer, held in one of the world’s most brutal political prisons, does not have the luxury of waiting for diplomatic conditions to align perfectly. The administration needs to treat Hekmati’s case as a priority, not a footnote.

Suozzi pledged to keep pushing. “I will continue to use every option available to me to push for Mr. Hekmati’s release,” he said.

The wrongful detainee designation is a meaningful step, and it sends a signal that Washington has not forgotten Kamran Hekmati. But a designation is paper. What Hekmati needs is a plane ticket home. The administration has the tools. Now it needs the will to use them before time runs out.