Robert Levinson
A retired FBI agent has become the longest-held American
hostage in history, more than six years after he was kidnapped in Iran.
Robert Levinson, 65, has now been held for exactly 2,455
days - one day more than US journalist Terry Anderson who was released by his
Iran-backed Hezbollah captors in 1991, according to the FBI.
Levinson, who left the bureau in 1998, was working as a
private investigator looking into cigarette smuggling on the Iranian island of
Kish - a hotbed for organised crime - when he vanished in 2007.
The last his family heard of him was in 2011 when they were
sent video and photos of him an anonymous email sparking fears the Iranian
intelligence services may be behind his abduction.
The photographs were released by the family to renew public
interest in the case and come two years after a hostage video and photographs
of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson raised the possibility that the missing
American was being held by terrorists.
Levinson, a private investigator, disappeared in 2007 on the
Iranian island of Kish.
The Iranian government has repeatedly denied knowing
anything about his disappearance, and the disturbing video and photos that
Levinson’s family received in late 2010 and early 2011 seemed to give credence
to the idea.
The extraordinary photos — showing Levinson’s hair wild and
gray, his beard long and unkempt — are being seen for the first time publicly
after the family provided copies to the AP. The video has been previously
released.
In response to Iran’s repeated denials, and amid secret
conversations with Iran’s government, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
in a statement in March 2011 that Levinson was being held somewhere in South
Asia.
The implication was that Levinson might be in the hands of
terrorist group or criminal organization somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
The statement was a goodwill gesture to Iran, one that the
U.S. hoped would prod Tehran to help bring him home.
But nothing happened.
Two years later, with the investigation stalled, the
consensus now among some U.S. officials involved in the case is that despite
years of denials, Iran’s intelligence service was almost certainly behind the
54-second video and five photographs of Levinson that were emailed anonymously
to his family.
The level of expertise used to send those items was too
good, indicating professional spies were behind them, the officials said,
speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk
publicly.
While everything dealing with Iran is murky, their
conclusion is based on the U.S. government’s best intelligence analysis.
The photos, for example, portray Levinson in an orange
jumpsuit like those worn by detainees at the U.S.
Prison at Guantanamo Bay. The
family received them via email in April 2011. In each photo, he held a sign
bearing a different message.
'I am here in Guantanamo,' one said. 'Do you know where it
is?'
Another read: 'This is the result of 30 years serving for
USA.'
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has personally and
repeatedly criticized the U.S. over its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
U.S. operatives in Afghanistan managed to trace the
cellphone used to send the photographs, officials said. But the owner had
nothing to do with the photos, and the trail went cold.
It was that way, too, with the hostage video the family
received. It was sent from a cyber cafe in Pakistan in November 2010.
The video depicted a haggard Levinson, who said he was being
held by a 'group.' In the background, Pashtun wedding music can be heard.
The Pashtun people live primarily in Pakistan and
Afghanistan, just across Iran’s eastern border.
Yet the sender left no clues to his identity and never used
that email address again.
Whoever was behind the photos and video was no amateur, U.S.
authorities concluded.
They made no mistakes, leading investigators to conclude it
had to be a professional intelligence service like Iran’s Ministry of
Intelligence and Security.
Levinson’s wife, Christine, provided the photos to The
Associated Press because she felt her husband’s disappearance was not getting
the attention it deserves from the government.
'There isn’t any pressure on Iran to resolve this,' she
said. 'It’s been much too long.'
Though U.S. diplomats and the FBI have tried behind the
scenes to find Levinson, of Coral Springs, Florida, and bring him home, both
presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have said little about his case and
have applied little public pressure on Iran for more information about
Levinson’s whereabouts.
Christine Levinson has watched more public pressure result
in Iran’s release of a trio of hikers, a journalist named Roxana Saberi and a
team of British sailors captured by the Iranian Navy. Everyone has come home
except her husband.
Washington’s quiet diplomacy, meanwhile, has yielded scant
results beyond the Iranian president’s promise to help find Levinson.
'We assumed there would be some kind of follow-up and we
didn’t get any,' Christine Levinson said.
'After those pictures came, we received nothing.'
In one meeting between the two countries, the Iranians told
the U.S. that they were looking for Levinson and were conducting raids in
Baluchistan, a mountainous region that includes parts of Pakistan, Iran and
Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
But the U.S. ultimately concluded that the Iranians made up
the story. There were no raids, and officials determined that the episode was a
ruse by Iranian counterintelligence to learn how U.S. intelligence agencies
work.
An expert on Russian organized crime, Levinson retired from
the FBI in 1998 and became a private investigator. He was investigating
cigarette smuggling in early 2007, and his family has said that took him to the
Iranian island of Kish, where he was last seen.
Kish is a popular resort area and a hotbed of smuggling and
organized crime. It is also a free trade zone, meaning U.S. citizens do not
need visas to travel there.
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