Robert Levinson went
missing on Iran’s Kish Island in the Gulf in March 2007. The case is another
irritant in the already hostile relationship between Washington and Tehran.
Tehran said on Thursday
that a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran 13 years ago had left the
country a long time ago, despite his family saying a day earlier that he had
died in Iranian custody.
Levinson’s family said on
Wednesday it now believed Levinson died in Iranian custody, based on
information from U.S. officials.
“Today with aching hearts,
we are sharing devastating news about Robert Levinson, the head of our family,”
they said in a statement.
However, Iran’s foreign
ministry spokesman said on Thursday that, based on what he called credible
evidence, Levinson had left Iran “years ago” for an unspecified destination.
“In the past years Iran has
tried to find out his state but could not find any signs of him being alive,”
spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, according to state television.
It was reported in 2013
that Levinson, a private detective and former FBI agent, was investigating
allegations of corruption by well-connected people in Iran.
Lawyer David McGee said
then that Levinson was trying to trace money laundered through Iranian exiles
living in Toronto.
U.S. officials had
acknowledged that Levinson had a relationship with the CIA as a source at the
time he visited Kish Island and disappeared.
A video released in 2011
showed him pleading for help. It did not say who was holding him or where.
Tehran denied knowledge of
Levinson’s whereabouts last November when it said a legal case involving him
was underway at a revolutionary court that handles security-related cases.
“Iran has always maintained
that its officials have no knowledge of Mr. Levinson’s whereabouts and that he
is not in Iranian custody. Those facts have not changed,” the spokesman for
Iran’s mission at the United Nations, Alireza Miryousefi, said on Thursday.
U.S. President Donald Trump
said on Wednesday he had not been told that Levinson was dead.
But White House national
security adviser Robert O’Brien said later that an investigation was still
going on but “we believe that Bob Levinson may have passed away some time ago”.
Levinson’s family said in
their statement: “We recently received information from U.S. officials that has
led both them and us to conclude that our wonderful husband and father died
while in Iranian custody.”
They said they did not know
when or how he died but that it was before the coronavirus epidemic hit Iran.
Nor did they know if Levinson’s body would ever be returned to them.
O’Brien said Iran must
provide a complete accounting of what happened to Levinson.
Levinson disappeared after
flying from Dubai to Kish in 2007. There he met with Daoud Salahuddin, an
American Islamic militant who fled to Iran while facing charges in the murder
of an Iranian embassy official based in Washington.
Levinson, then a private
investigator, was seeking information on alleged corruption involving former
Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his family, sources familiar
with his work said.
The Iranian government has
never publicly acknowledged any role in Levinson’s abduction, though at the
time of his disappearance a government-affiliated media outlet said he was “in
the hands of Iranian security forces”.
Some U.S. investigators at
least until recently believed Levinson was still alive, while officials at
other U.S. agencies believe he died some time, perhaps years, ago.
The United States and the
Islamic Republic are longtime foes. Washington opposes Tehran’s influence in
the Middle East and backs its regional rival Saudi Arabia. They also support
opposing sides in wars in Yemen and Syria.
Washington also maintains
tough economic sanctions on Iran. In 2018, Trump pulled the United States out
of an international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program.
(Reuters/NAN)
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