So, if he was not kidnapped how did he ended up in DC from Saudi Arabia?
Iranian nuclear scientist turns up in D.C.
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Beirut — An Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran claims was kidnapped by the United States has sought refuge at the Pakistani Embassy’s Iranian interests section in Washington and is seeking to return home to Iran, Pakistani authorities said Tuesday.
Shahram Amiri, a onetime researcher at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization who disappeared during a trip to Saudi Arabia last year, appeared at the Iranian interests section office at 6:30 p.m. Monday, said Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit.
Iranian state television said Amiri has already been in touch with Iranian media in New York and quoted him as saying he had been held by armed men and under extreme psychological pressure for 14 months and called for his immediate return home.
But U.S. officials quickly discounted the accusations.
A senior State Department official said Tuesday morning that Amiri “is in the U.S. of his own free will, and he’s free to go, obviously.”
“He came to this country freely, he lived here freely, and he has chosen freely to return to Iran,” said another American official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. “The United States, to be sure, isn’t standing in his way. He himself gives the lie to the idea he was tortured or imprisoned. He can tell any story he wants – but that won’t make it true.”
Because Tehran and Washington do not maintain diplomatic ties, the Pakistani Embassy in Washington serves as host for the Iranian interests section, which provides visas for travel to Iran and other consular services for Iranians in the United States.
Basit said Mustafa Rahmani, head of the Iranian interests section, “is making arrangements for [Amiri’s] repatriation back to Iran.” Basit added that neither the Iranian nor American government has approached Pakistani authorities about Amiri’s demands.
Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency quoted an unnamed source at the Iranian foreign ministry as saying the government had been in touch with the office in Washington. The website of the conservative newspaper Iran, controlled by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, cited an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying Tehran authorities were already taking steps to repatriate Amiri.
U.S. officials have said Amiri defected to the United States. Born in the Western Iranian city of Kermanshah in 1977, Amiri worked as a radio isotope researcher at Malek Ashtar Industrial University, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, an elite military branch, as well as for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization. He was on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in the spring of 2009 when he vanished.
In recent weeks, Amiri has appeared in a series of bizarre and contradictory videos on the Internet, claiming in two of them that he was kidnapped by the United States. In a third, he said he is studying in America. ABC television reported in March that, after defecting to the U.S., Amiri began helping the CIA undermine Iran’s nuclear program.
“Following the release of my interview in the Internet which brought disgrace to the U.S. government for this abduction, they wanted to send me back quietly to Iran by another country’s airline,” state television quoted Amiri as saying Tuesday. “They wanted to deny the main story and cover up this abduction. However, they finally failed.”
A senior State Department official said Tuesday morning that Amiri “is in the U.S. of his own free will, and he’s free to go, obviously.” Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, close to the elite Revolutionary Guard, said the U.S. handed Amiri over to Tehran’s interest section, contradicting earlier accounts of him seeking refuge at the consular outpost or the Pakistani embassy.
The Iranian interests section is on the second floor of a nondescript office building on the city’s northwest side, about two miles from the Pakistani Embassy. Portraits of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, hang in the waiting room. The office is staffed by Iranian expatriates, not officials.
Amiri’s disappearance occurred amid an ongoing dispute between Iran and the West over Tehran’s nuclear activities. Although Iran claims that it is using its nuclear program solely to generate electricity, the U.S. and its Western allies fear that Tehran’s ultimate goal is to develop nuclear weapons.
Times staff writers Paul Richter and David S. Cloud in Washington and special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.
