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Washington (AFP)
On Monday, the United States blamed Tehran for the first time for the “kidnapping” of American Bob Levinson “and his probable death”, knowing that he was a former FBI agent who disappeared in 2007 in Iran under mysterious circumstances.
And the U.S. Treasury Department announced that Washington had imposed sanctions on two senior Iranian intelligence officials, Muhammad Basri and Ahmed Khazaee, on suspicion of their involvement in the Levinson case, while an official from the Donald Trump administration urged the President-elect Joe Biden’s government to include any future negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program. Americans wrongfully arrested (in Iran) are taken home. ”
“The Iranian government promised to assist in bringing Bob Levinson back, but has not done so at all,” US Federal Police Director Christopher Ray said in a statement. “The truth is that the Iranian intelligence services, with the approval of senior Iranian officials, are involved in the kidnapping and arrest of Bob.”
Another senior US official told reporters: “The US government has concluded that all the evidence available to us shows that it appears that Bob died during his arrest.”
And last March, after thirteen years of ambiguity engulfing the case, President Trump hinted that Levinson was probably dead. His family confirmed at the time that US officials told them that he “died in detention by the Iranian authorities.”
Washington has always claimed that Levinson was not working for the US government when it lost track of him in March 2017 on the island of Kish in the Gulf. He retired from the FBI about ten years ago.
But the Washington Post reported that he was working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was preparing to meet with an insider on Iran’s nuclear program.
© 2020 AFP
