For Treason Iran executed Nuclear Scientist Shahram Amiri

Iran's Judiciary Spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on Sunday that Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri has been executed on charges of transferring sensitive information to the US.
Shahram Amiri was a nuclear researcher at Malek Ashtar University of Technology working for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization before he disappeared while on Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2009 and resurfaced in Washington some time later. “He revealed Iran’s secrets and vital nuclear information to our enemy,” Ejei underlined, adding he was trialed legally and in the presence of his lawyer.”

After reappearing in the US in 2010, he said he had been kidnapped and put under "intense psychological pressure to reveal sensitive information".


However, US officials at the time said Amiri had defected of his own accord and provided "useful information".

While in the US, Amiri appeared in a string of online videos that added to the mystery surrounding his case.

In the first video, released by Iranian state TV, the scientist said he had been kidnapped in Medina, Saudi Arabia, in a joint operation by the CIA and Saudi intelligence and was being held captive in the US.

In the second video, released on YouTube, Amiri said he had decided to continue his studies in the US.

In the third video, broadcast again by Iranian state TV, Amiri claimed to be on the run from the CIA. He then presented himself to the Iranian interest section at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, asking to go home.

He received a hero’s welcome in Tehran and was portrayed as someone who had fled American captivity.

What happened next is unknown until opposition websites reported that he had been imprisoned and tortured in jail.

Amiri’s case unfolded during a covert campaign to stop Iran from advancing its nuclear activities by using cyber-attacks, most notably the Stuxnet computer worm, and murdering its nuclear scientists. Five assassination attempts between 2010 and 2012 resulted in the killing of four scientists and experts and the injuring of another scientist who was later promoted as the country’s nuclear chief. Iranian officials accused the west, the US and Israel of being behind both campaigns.

In mid-July 2010, as Amiri returned to Tehran, the Washington Post reported that he was allegedly paid $5m by the CIA for the intelligence he had shared on Iran’s nuclear activities. Reports of Amiri’s imprisonment intensified speculation that he was forced to return by threats to his relatives, but the exact sequence of events that led to this remain unclear. In 2012, it was reported that he had been sentenced to 10 years in jail but Mohseni-Eje’i said on Sunday those reports were untrue and he had been sentenced to death from the beginning.

Mark Fitzpatrick, the director of the non-proliferation and disarmament programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told the Guardian: referring to the assassination of four Iranian nuclear scientists between 2010 and 2012, added: “It’s ironic that, while a foreign country, assumed to be Israel, stopped killing Iranian nuclear scientists four years ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran has now done it to itself.”

The release of Clinton’s emails last year by the State Department appeared to have been damning for Amiri. A number of emails sent to the then secretary of state appeared to support claims that he was a defector. “Our friend has to be given a way out. We should recognize his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence. Our person won’t be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave, so be it,” wrote one senior official to Clinton, according to CNN.

“Following the reported revelations in the Clinton emails, Amiri was executed for spying,” said Dina Esfandiary, MacArthur fellow at the centre for science and security studies at King’s College London. “In the Iranian judiciary’s mind, it’s a necessary signal to the US that Iran is aware of their activities in Iran and that this is what is done to those who help the enemy. It’s a textbook spying case.”

According to Iran’s law, judicial system determines 10 years in prison or death penalty on espionage charges

Timeline of a disappearance –

1-
May or June 2009 –
Shahram Amiri disappears after going on pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

2- June 2010:
emergence of videos apparently recorded in the US where a man alleged to be Amiri says he has been kidnapped and put under pressure to co-operate with the CIA

3-13 July 2010:
Amiri reappears in Washington DC at the Iranian interest’s section of Pakistan's embassy, seeking to return to Iran.

4-
15 July 2010:
Amiri resurfaces in Iran where he is welcomed by officials and family members.

5-
May 2011:
He initially returned to Tehran to a hero's welcome, but was later arrested and tried for treason.

6-
August 2016:
Amiri's family announces he has been executed, apparently by hanging.

Reality views by sm –

Monday, August 8, 2016

Tags – Treason Iran Death Punishment Amiri USA