Missing Iranian nuclear scientist turns up in US

From Cryptogon and The Guardian


A missing Iranian nuclear scientist has taken refuge in the Pakistani embassy in Washington following claims that he had been kidnapped by the CIA.
Iran accused Saudi Arabia of handing over Shahram Amiri to the US after he went missing during a pilgrimage to Mecca a year ago. A man purporting to be Amiri subsequently appeared in a series of internet videos. In one, the man said he was studying in the US, while in another a man calling himself Amiri said he was hiding from US agents.
This morning, a spokesman for Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs in Islamabad said Amiri had been “dropped off” at the Iranian interests section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington at 6.30pm (11.30pm BST) last night.
“He was dropped there by someone,” said Abdul Basit. “He’s in the Iranian interests section, not in the Pakistan embassy per se. They are making arrangements to repatriate him.”
Because Iran and the US do not have diplomatic relations, Pakistan handles Iranian interests in the US.

Nuclear Scientists Missing or Dead. A List.

(Updated)

I learned of a recent trend of nuclear scientists gone missing or found dead from Cryptogon.com. Unfortunately I found it easy to add to the list. Some of them have links to the Iran nuclear situation.


1. Ardeshir Hosseinpour

2. Lokanathan Mahalingam -Follow up here, body found.

3. Shahram Amiri

4. Timothy Hampton -Other articles here and here.

5. Antonio Ferrigno

6. Masoud Ali Mohammadi

7. Lachlan Cranswick

According to this article in the Telegraph, it is public knowledge that Isreal "has launched a covert war against Iran" including "the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations."

That might explain some of the disappearances but I'm not sure about cases 2,4, 5, and 7 where I have not yet found the link to the Iran nuclear program. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist however. There might also be more then one cause to this phenomenon.