An Iranian court has sentenced an American man to death on charges of spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said Monday the judgment against Amir Mirzaei Hekmati was for CIA ties and for cooperating with a “hostile country.”

The U.S. State Department has previously demanded his release, saying the spying accusations are false and that Iran has a history of holding “innocent foreigners for political reasons.”

In December, Iranian state television broadcast video of a man identified as Hekmati, who was born in Arizona to Iranian parents.

The video said he was specially trained and served at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and showed him confessing to being sent to Iran on a mission to infiltrate the country's secret service.