As if the story of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri wasn't weird and complicated enough. Both the Pakistani and Iranian governments claimed this morning he's taken refuge in Pakistani's Washington embassy and is trying to get home. But a spokesperson at the Pakistani embassy flatly denies to Danger Room that Amiri is there.
Amiri, you may recall, was abducted by U.S. spies last year during a trip to Mecca (at least, according to Tehran). Or perhaps he defected, and is now studying for his Ph.D. of his own free will in the States (according to American press accounts). Last month, a pair of videos surfaces supporting both versions of Amiri's tale.
The embassy is a pretty ideal location for intelligence-borne intrigue. It's tucked away in a tony, bucolic area behind the University of the District of Columbia off of Connecticut Avenue NW. After Washington and Tehran severed ties following the 1979 revolution and hostage crisis, the embassy maintains a section representing Iran's interests, so it's a logical place for an allegedly-kidnapped Iranian to go.
But a Pakistani embassy official tells Danger Room that the reports of Amiri turning up in the embassy are "incorrect information" and "we have no one here" matching his description. That's from an individual at the press office who didn't identify herself and said she could not speak for the record. She added she couldn't explain why a spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry in Islamabad told reporters that the scientist is at the embassy's Iranian interest section, about two miles away from the main facility in D.C.'s Glover Park neighborhood. But she also didn't split hairs: "He's not in the embassy at all."
That said, the Iranian interest section is staffed by Iranians, not Pakistanis. A spokesman for the Iranian interest section, Ali Shahrazi, tells Danger Room, "When we arrived this morning, [Amiri] was here." He dodged a question about whether the Pakistanis assisted in Amiri's alleged arrival, saying that it was the job of Iranian staff to help Iranian nationals. But there are lots of questions remaining about Amiri's true identity, to say nothing of his whereabouts.
Two press officials at the Pakistani embassy authorized to speak for the record, Imran Gardezi or Nadeem Kiani, were not immediately available for comment. We'll update this story when we reach them.
The discrepancy between what the Pakistani embassy and the Pakistani foreign ministry say about Amiri's whereabouts is typical of this story. Everything about Amiri's case is murky. CIA sources told ABC in March that he defected voluntarily, and provided a trove of information about Iran's illicit uranium enrichment, now the subject of a new round of United Nations-approved sanctions. But last month, Iranian state-run TV ran a clip of a man it claims is Amiri, talking into his laptop and saying that CIA and Saudi intelligence officials nicked him while he took a pilgrimage to Mecca last year and deposited him in... Tucson. No one explained how he could have recorded a video in custody.
But then a second video emerged online, featuring a different man decked out in a professorial beige sportcoat also claiming to be Amiri. That guy said he's simply a guy studying abroad and not in any sense a prisoner – or a defector.
Anonymous U.S. officials have denied kidnapping Amiri, and officials from the State Department and the CIA did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the story. We'll keep scouring YouTube to see if any new videos emerge backing one version of Amiri's whereabouts or another.
Update, 11:14 a.m.: Politico's Laura Rozen quotes an anonymous U.S. official saying Amiri is free to leave the United States and wasn't held against his will in the first place.
See Also:
