An American man in Iran has been sentenced to death after a court convicted him of spying for the CIA, state radio reported Monday.
Iran maintains that Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, underwent special training before heading to the Middle Eastern state on an alleged intelligence mission.
Under Iranian law, the 28-year-old has close to three weeks to appeal the sentence.
"He has 20 days to appeal but this is a pretty dramatic situation and the Americans are quite worried," said CTV's London Bureau Chief Tom Kennedy.
The court convicted Hekmati of working with a hostile country, belonging to the CIA and attempting to accuse Iran of terrorism, a Monday report said.
His death sentence comes against the backdrop of deteriorating ties between Iran and the United States.

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This is not a good development in a area that hostility is already escalating daily. Reading this story and the current state of the world, "Franz Ferdinand" popped into my head, at the time nobody knew he would have been the catalyst for plunging the world into a war either.