WASHINGTON — (CNN) Amir Hekmati, one of the five Americans released by Iran, said Tuesday that his freedom was “like being born again.”
“I feel extremely lucky, alive, for the first time in a long time, and very humbled at everybody’s support, from the President to Congress to my fellow Marines, and especially my family who’ve really gone through so much throughout this time,” he told reporters outside Landstuhl Regional Medical Center before a trip to Michigan.
Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Christian pastor Saeed Abedini and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari were also released Sunday as part of a prisoner swap. Matthew Trevithick, a student who was recently detained, was released, too, but not as part of the prisoner swap.
“I did not relax until we were out of Iranian airspace,” Hekmati said.
He was detained in 2011, weeks after arriving in Iran to visit his grandmother, according to his family’s website. The former Marine infantryman and Arabic and Persian linguist was accused of espionage and other charges in 2012.
Iran detained Rezaian in 2014, eventually charging him with espionage and other crimes, according to The Washington Post. He was the newspaper’s Tehran bureau chief.
Abedini, an Iran native and convert to Christianity, was arrested in 2012 and convicted the next year on charges of attempting to undermine the Iranian government. He had been sentenced to eight years in prison.
Not much is known about Khosravi-Roodsari.
Trevithick arrived Sunday night in Boston, according to his stepmother, Susan Trevithick.
Rezaian, Hekmati and Abedini arrived Sunday at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and they were scheduled to undergo medical checkups at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. military hospital.
Hekmati’s family released a photo Monday showing him with two sisters and a brother-in-law, along with U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Michigan. They spent about 15 minutes together, according to a brief statement from the family.
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