Former US Marine released from Iran lands in Michigan

Hekmati was one of five Americans released to coincide with the implementation of a nuclear deal under which worldwide economic sanctions against Iran were lifted in return for curbs on Tehran’s atomic program.

Pastor Saeed Abedini, 35, arrived in North Carolina on Thursday afternoon, a spokesman for a Christian group said.

“They have created this fundraiser in hopes of giving Amir the much needed time he needs to focus on our family, particularly our father, now that he is free and back home”, reads the message, offering permission to Friends of Amir, the sponsor on the GoFundMe page. “I love this city”.

Hekmati and three other Americans were released by Iran in a swap with the United States.

He was sentenced to death the following year, but that was downgraded to a 10-year prison term.

Abedini was sentenced in 2013 to eight years in prison after being accused of harming Iran’s national security by setting up home-based churches in Iran.

“It’s been a very long road”, Hekmati said Thursday.

It was a scene that was four and a half years in the making. I love its people.

Abedini, Hekmati and Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian were receiving treatment at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany since their release over the weekend.

“I’m happy to finally be home”, Hekmati said after landing in Flint. “They have been so good to me and my family and we are very grateful”, Hekmati said.

He said he had reached a point “where I had just sort of accepted the fact that I was going to be spending 10 years in prison”. They told reporters they were honored to have met Hekmati.

He was arrested in August 2011 on espionage charges that were dismissed by his family.

In this image made from video, former U.S Marine Amir Hekmati, center, is flanked by MI congressman Dan Kildee, left, and Hekmati’s brother-in-law Ramy Kurdi as he speaks to the media in Landstuhl, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016…

Kildee, a Flint-area Democrat who traveled to Germany with Hekmati’s relatives and visited with him there, told reporters at the airport that this was “Amir’s day”.

In exchange for the American prisoners’ freedom, Washington pardoned or commuted the sentences of an Iranian and six people of dual U.S.-Iranian citizenship in what President Barack Obama called a “one-time gesture”.