Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent
An Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared while on pilgrimage to Mecca last year has defected to the United States and is living and working there for the CIA, it was reported today.
ABC News’ report on Shahram Amiri’s defection came as President Barack Obama vowed to forge an international agreement on new sanctions on Iran within weeks.
The report described the defection as “an intelligence coup,” claiming that information gleaned from debriefing Dr Amiri had added detail and confirmation to existing CIA intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear programme. It also increased the growing international pressure on Tehran.
Dr Amiri, a nuclear scientist at Tehran’s Malek Ashtar University, went missing in June last year three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia for the annual haj.
News of his disappearance emerged only months later when Iran accused the US of abducting him and lodged a formal protest against Washington with the United Nations.
Malek Ashtar University, where Dr Amiri worked, has been identified by the UN as a nuclear research facility overseen by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the guardians of its clandestine nuclear weapons programme.
Documents from within the programme obtained by The Times last year detailed the outsourcing of nuclear work to trusted university departments.
ABC reported that Dr Amiri’s defection was part of a long-planned CIA operation to woo Iranian nuclear scientists through colleagues with family contacts in the US. The CIA was said to have approached him through an intermediary in Iran who made the offer of resettlement in the US.
A CIA spokesman refused to comment on the report.
The most senior Iranian official believed to have defected is Ali Reza Asghari, a former Revolutionary Guard brigadier general and deputy Defence Minister, who vanished on a trip to Turkey in 2007. His name also appeared with Dr Amiri’s on a list of Iranians allegedly kidnapped by the US submitted by Tehran to the UN.
Mr Asghari was said to be the most senior military officer overseeing Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. Western intelligence sources say the programme is deliberately compartmentalised to prevent its collapse in the event of defections or deaths, but defectors may still be able to provide key information on individual nuclear projects.
The timing of Dr Amiri’s disappearance raised speculation that he provided the final jigsaw pieces required to confirm the clandestine construction of a second uranium enrichment plant, Fordow, near the holy city of Qom.
Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency about the Fordow plant in September, just days before Washington publicly revealed it.
Western intelligence sources said Tehran only acted because it realised the secrecy surrounding Fordow had been compromised by the West.
The revelation prompted a brief era of cooperation between Tehran and the E3 plus 3, the grouping comprised of the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, which negotiates with Iran on the international community’s behalf.
However, Tehran rapidly failed to live up to its promises and a string of provocative declarations followed, including along with new revelations over its nuclear programme, including the first International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report citing evidence of current nuclear weapons work.
At the G8 meeting of foreign ministers in Quebec, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed to the recent string of disclosures over Iran’s nuclear programme as evidence of the need for sanctions. “The last 15 months have demonstrated the unwillingness of Iran to fulfill its international obligations and that’s the basis of my optimism that we’re going to have a consensus reached in the Security Council,” she said.
In Washington, Mr Obama acknowledged that China remains to be convinced, but noted Russia’s hardening against Iran despite its lucrative trade ties with Tehran. “My hope is we are going to get this done this spring,” Mr Obama said after meeting with the French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, on how to win over China’s support for a resolution. “I’m not interested in waiting months”.
Times Online
