The Iranian scientist who Washington says defected to the US, only to return to Tehran on Thursday, had been an informant for the CIA inside Iran for several years, providing information about the country’s nuclear program, according to US officials.
The scientist, Shahram Amiri, described to US intelligence officers details of how a university in Tehran became the covert headquarters for the country’s nuclear efforts, the officials confirmed. While still in Iran, he was also one of the sources for a much-disputed National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s suspected weapons program, published in 2007, the officials said. For several years, Amiri provided what one official described as “significant, original” information about secret aspects of his country’s nuclear program.
This account by the US, some of whom are apparently trying to discredit Amiri’s tale of having been kidnapped by the CIA, provides the latest twist in one of strangest tales of the nuclear era. It also provides the first hint of how the US acquired intelligence from Iranian scientists, besides its previously reported penetrations of Iranian computer systems.
Amiri arrived in Tehran on Thursday repeating his allegation that he had been grabbed in Saudi Arabia by the CIA and Saudi intelligence and tortured. US officials, clearly embarrassed that he had left a program that promised him a new identity and benefits amounting to about US$5 million, said his accusations that he had been kidnapped and drugged were manufactured and an effort to survive what will almost certainly be a grilling by the Iranian authorities.
“His safety depends on him sticking to that fairy tale about pressure and torture,” insisted one of the US officials, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified while discussing a classified operation to attract Iranian scientists. “His challenge is to try to convince the Iranian security forces that he never cooperated with the United States.”
On Thursday, even as Amiri was publicly greeted at home by his seven-year-old son and held a news conference, Iran’s foreign minister gave the first official hints of Iranian doubts about his story. “We first have to see what has happened in these two years and then we will determine if he’s a hero or not,” the BBC quoted Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki, as saying to a French news agency. “Iran must determine if his claims about being kidnapped were correct or not.”
After more than a year of denying any knowledge of Amiri while he was living undercover in Tucson, Arizona, and then briefly in Virginia, US officials in recent days have been surprisingly willing to describe their actions in the case. That may be in part to fend off charges that the handling of the Amiri case was badly bungled.
The Washington Post first reported that Amiri had been given US$5 million, which officials described on Thursday as standard for someone who had provided essential information. However, the money would have been paid over an extended period, the officials said, and Amiri was not able to take it with him because US sanctions prohibited financial transfers to Iran.
Amiri, a specialist in measuring radioactive materials, is not believed to have been central to any of Iran’s efforts at weapons design. However, he worked at the Malek Ashtar University, which some US officials think is used as an academic cover for the organization responsible for designing weapons and warheads that could fit atop an Iranian missile.
The US officials said that at some point while working as a secret informant, Amiri visited Saudi Arabia, and the CIA arranged to spirit him out of that country and eventually to the US. It is unclear whether Amiri tried to bring his wife and child with him.
Administration officials conceded that Amiri’s decision to come out of hiding and return to Iran was both a large embarrassment and a possible disincentive to future defections.
The incident, however, is also an embarrassment for Iran. Analysts said that even if he were publicly greeted as a hero, Amiri would probably be viewed with suspicion by the Iranian government.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of