Iranian Court Overturns American's Spying Conviction The Supreme Court of Iran has tossed out the death penalty conviction of a former Marine accused of spying and ordered a retrial in a separate court, Iranian news services reported on Monday. The reports, carried by the Iranian Students" News Agency and the Fars News agency, which both have close ties to the government, quoted a state prosecutor as saying that shortcomings had been found in the case against the American, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, and that a new trial would be held. "To the extent that I am aware, the Supreme Court has objected to Hekmati's sentence," Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the prosecutor-general of Iran, was quoted as saying. It has overturned the conviction and sent it to an equivalent court for retrial. The Hekmati case has become a source of friction between the United States and Iran, coming against the backdrop of their increasing confrontation over Iran's disputed nuclear program. It was unclear whether the Supreme Court's reported decision to order a new trial represented a political decision in the Iranian hierarchy to offer a diplomatic gesture. Iranian rights activists have said Mr. Hekmati, 28, would have been the first American citizen to be executed in Iran in the 33 years of estranged relations between the two countries. The Supreme Court's decision came as lawyers representing Mr. Hekmati said they had begun an appeal of his conviction. The short Iranian news reports also mentioned that in Mr. Hekmati's first trial, he said he had been tricked by the Americans into spying for the Central Intelligence Agency but that he had never meant to harm Iran. The C.I.A. has declined to comment on the case. The White House and the State Department have denied that Mr. Hekmati was a spy and have called for his immediate release. Mr. Hekmati, who was born in Flagstaff, Ariz., and served in the Marines for four years after graduating from high school, was detained in August, but his arrest was not made public until December, when he appeared on Iranian state television and said that he had been sent to Iran by the C.I.A. His family, who live in Flint, Mich., said he had made the trip to see his grandmothers. In January Iranian authorities permitted his mother, Benhaz Hekmati, to travel to Iran and visit him at Tehran's Evin Prison. Rights groups, which have closely followed Mr. Hekmati's case, said in response to the Supreme Court's reported decision to order a new trial that it should be conducted with greater openness than the first one. "We call on the Iranian judiciary to observe international standards of justice and to allow international observers to be present at the Appellate Court for his retrial," Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, an advocacy group in New York, said in a statement. Iran has a history of arresting Americans and convicting them of spying, and then freeing them once bail is paid. Such was the case with three American hikers detained on the Iran-Iraq border in 2009.