Move over, Magneto (The Newsroom)

Amir Hekmati. (Courtesy of his family)

The family members of an Iranian-American man being held in Iran as an alleged spy said Tuesday they are shocked by the accusations, which they said are untrue.

Amir Hekmati, 28, a former U.S. Marine linguist from Flint, Michigan, was given permission by the Iran interests section in Washington, D.C. to travel to Iran to visit his elderly grandparents and relatives there, his family said in a statement emailed to journalists covering the case Tuesday.

Hekmati entered Iran on August 14th, and was detained more than two weeks later.

"The Iranian government detained Amir on August 29, 2011 without any charges, and urged our family to remain silent with the promise of an eventual release," the family said in the statement. They have not heard from him directly in 100 days.

But on Sunday, Iranian television broadcast a video of Hekmati allegedly "confessing" to having been a CIA agent sent to infiltrate Iran.

Hekmati's family said Tuesday the charges are outrageous and untrue.

Amir's family was "shocked by the recent broadcast aired on Iranian TV with false information and a forced confessions," the statement said. "Amir has never had any affiliation with the CIA, and these allegations are untrue."

Amir's family "hopes that this misunderstanding can be resolved peacefully with Iran, and that Amir can be reunited with his family and friends in the US who miss him dearly, and are praying for his safe return," the statement said.

The family--Amir's father Ali Hekmati works as a professor of biology at a community college in Flint, Michigan--said in the statement that Hekmati served in the U.S. Marines from 2001 until 2005.

Another former U.S. Marine, Jared Bystrom, told Yahoo News Tuesday that he and Hekmati had been posted by the Marines to the defense language school in Monterey, California in 2001. Hekmati had studied Arabic, Bystrom said. Hekmati later served as a linguist in Iraq.

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/yahoonewsroom/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_newsroom/20111221/od_yblog_newsroom/move-over-magneto

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