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August 8, 2016

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Iran executes scientist for spying for US

IRAN has executed an Iranian nuclear scientist detained in 2010 when he returned home from the United States, after a court convicted him of spying for Washington, a spokesman for the judiciary said yesterday.

“Through his connection with the United States, Shahram Amiri gave vital information about the country to the enemy,” Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei told a weekly news conference, state news agency IRNA reported.

Mohseni Ejei said a court had sentenced Amiri to death and the sentence had been upheld by Iran’s Supreme court.

Amiri, a university researcher working for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in 2009, and later surfaced in the United States. But he returned to Iran in 2010 and received a hero’s welcome before being arrested.

US officials said in 2010 that Washington received “useful information” from Amiri.

Iran accused the CIA of kidnapping Amiri. US officials said Amiri had been free to come and go as he pleased, and that he may have returned because of pressures on his family in Iran. Amiri denied this, saying “my family had no problems.”

In interviews, Amiri described being kidnapped and held against his will by Saudi and US spies, while US officials said he was to receive millions of dollars for his help in understanding Iran’s nuclear program.

“I am a simple researcher who was working in the university,” Amiri said on his return to Tehran in July 2010. “I’m not involved in any confidential jobs. I had no classified information.”

News about Amiri, born in 1977, has been scant since his return to Iran. Last year, his father Asgar Amiri told the BBC’s Farsi-language service that his son had been held at a secret site since coming home.

US officials said in 2010 that Amiri was paid US$5 million to offer the CIA information about Iran’s nuclear program, though he left the country without the money.

They said Amiri, who ran a radiation detection program in Iran, stayed in the US for months of his own free will.

But when he returned to Iran, Amiri said Saudi and US officials kidnapped him while he visited the Saudi holy city of Medina. He also said Israeli agents were present at his interrogations and that CIA officers offered him US$50 million to remain in America.

“I was under the harshest mental and physical torture,” he said.

Amiri’s case indirectly found its way back into the spotlight in the US last year with the release of emails sent by US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton while she served as secretary of state. The release of those emails came amid criticism of Clinton’s use of a private account and server that has persisted into her campaign against Republican candidate Donald Trump.

An email forwarded to Clinton by senior adviser Jake Sullivan on July 5, 2010, appears to reference Amiri. “We have a diplomatic, ‘psychological’ issue, not a legal one. Our friend has to be given a way out,” read the email by Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special envoy.




 

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