Iran officials said Sunday that the country had executed a nuclear scientist for treason, claiming he leaked information to the USA during a mysterious disappearance in 2009 that has left questions about his ultimate loyalties unanswered.
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He revealed top secrets to “the enemy”, according to a judicial spokesman, who claimed Tehran had “outsmarted” America. It added that the spokesman said Amiri had access to lawyers but did not explain why Iranian authorities never announced his conviction.
He is said to have had an in-depth knowledge of Iran’s nuclear programme and was kept at a secret location after returning to the country. 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.
Reports say Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia in 2009.
However, Iranian authorities have remained largely silent on the subject since then.
Iran confirmed on Sunday the execution of a chief nuclear scientist.
Manoto, a private satellite television channel based in London, first reported Saturday that Amiri had been executed. Amiri’s mother said she was handed her son’s body with rope marks around his neck.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Amiri’s family. For his part, Amiri said that he was a low-level researcher without access to significant information about Iran’s nuclear program, but USA officials said that he had been cooperative and had provided sensitive information about Iran’s nuclear program.
USA officials told The Wall Street Journal in 2010 that Mr. Amiri had been given $5 million and allowed to stay in the country in exchange for his cooperation and was told he could be executed if he returned. In them he denied being a defector and claimed to have been hiding out from Central Intelligence Agency operatives in the US state of Virginia.
Amiri appeared in a third video posted June 29, 2010, where he said he’d escaped US custody and had reached Virginia.
The emails also appear to offer insight into the department’s plans to get Amiri back to Iran safely.
“I have not done any activity against my homeland”, he said. A number of emails sent to the then secretary of state appeared to support claims that he was a defector.
The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of keeping the country safe.
Amiri however returned to a hero’s welcome to Iran in July 2010 and was later arrested.
An Iranian nuclear scientist who once claimed he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency has been executed after being accused of spying for the United States. Tehran accused Washington of abducting him – an accusation the US denied.
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“I was under the harshest mental and physical torture”, he said.
