Iran blames US for missing nuke scientist

Times:

Iran accused the US yesterday of abducting and incarcerating a nuclear scientist who went missing while on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

The statements, from the Iranian Foreign Ministry, marked the first time that Tehran has admitted that the scientist, Shahram Amiri, was involved in the country’s nuclear programme. “Iran’s nuclear scientist, who had gone to Saudi Arabia, was handed over by Riyadh to Washington,” Ramin Mehmanparast, the ministry spokesman, said.

Mr Amiri, who, Iran said yesterday, worked for the civilian Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, disappeared on pilgrimage to Mecca in June. The timing raised speculation that he could have helped to reveal to the West the existence of a clandestine uranium enrichment facility being built beneath a mountain near the holy city of Qom.Iran told the UN about the Fordow plant in September, days before Washington publicly revealed it. According to Western intelligence sources, this was because Tehran realised that its secrecy had been compromised. Some Arabic media reports at the time said that Mr Amiri had sought asylum.

In October, Iran lodged formal complaints with Washington and the United Nations alleging a Saudi and American role in his disappearance. Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, told a press conference in Tehran yesterday that the authorities now had evidence of that.

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Mr Amiri is the second person involved in Iran’s nuclear programme to have vanished abroad in the past two years. The first was Ali Reza Asghari, a deputy Defence Minister and leader of the Revolutionary Guards. He disappeared in Turkey two years ago. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are two of America’s strongest regional allies and the most outspoken about a possible Iranian military nuclear programme.

Mr Mottaki lodged a complaint with the UN Secretary-General last month about four missing Iranians who he claimed were in US custody. Mr Amiri and Mr Asghari were among them.

I suspect that the US hikers were taken hostage in hopes of exchanging them for the missing Iranians. I also suspect the the missing Iranians voluntarily offered their information to the US in exchange for a new life in this country.

Besides the missing people associated with Iran's nuclear program there has also been at least one mysterious death of a nuclear scientist.

You have to wonder what else this scientist disclosed beyond the secret facility.