Iran: The Apparent Abduction of an Ex-FBI Agent
By Fred Burton
U.S. State Department officials sent another note to the Iranian government over the weekend seeking information on Robert Levinson, a U.S. citizen and retired FBI agent who went missing March 8, allegedly after attending a meeting on Iran's resort island of Kish. Of the three notes regarding the disappearance Washington has sent to Tehran since March 15, Iranian officials so far have responded to only the second, sent April 2. In that response, Tehran simply denied having any information pertaining to Levinson's whereabouts.
Meanwhile, there have been conflicting reports in the Iranian media concerning the case. Iranian PressTV, citing unnamed informed sources, reported April 3 that Levinson had been picked up by Iranian security forces March 9. In an April 4 ISNA report, a local government official in Kish was quoted as saying there was no evidence indicating whether the retired FBI agent had entered Kish island at all. He asked Washington to "indicate the identity of the individual, the flight he took to Iran and other related documents instead of making false allegations." Then, PressTV quoted Iranian Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei on April 23 as saying there was no evidence Levinson was arrested or that he might still be in the country.
This latest State Department note -- as with the others, sent indirectly to Tehran via the Swiss -- appears to have been intended to dispute the assertion that Levinson never went to Iran, and to provide the Iranian government with the flight number, date and time Levinson entered the country. The message also noted there is no evidence that Levinson ever left Iran.
Given the increased tensions between the United States and Iran, the Iranian intelligence service's capabilities and the fact that Levinson was meeting with a person closely connected to Iranian intelligence, it is beyond comprehension that the Iranians did not know who Levinson was or that he was in Kish. The island, a free trade zone touted as a consumer's paradise -- with numerous malls, shopping centers, tourist attractions and resort hotels -- would be especially under the watchful eye of Iranian intelligence.
Tehran's denials, combined with the general circumstances under which Levinson disappeared, suggest Levinson was grabbed by the Iranians to be used as a bargaining chip in their covert intelligence war against the United States.
The Environment
Levinson's disappearance comes at a time of heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, whose covert "intelligence war" has been heating up since the beginning of the year.
On Jan. 10, U.S. forces arrested five officials from an Iranian diplomatic office in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil. The United States, which accuses the five of supporting Iraqi insurgent groups, has been holding them ever since. Then, on Jan. 25, Ardeshir Hassanpour, a high-level scientist who is believed to have played a key role in Iran's nuclear program, was killed. His death has not been officially explained, but he likely was a target of Israel's Mossad. Eleven days later, on Feb. 5, Jalal Sharafi, a second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, was abducted from the Karrada district while on his way to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a new branch of an Iranian state-owned bank. Sharafi was held until April 2, when he was released in an apparent swap for the 15 British sailors and marines detained by Iran on March 23.
The day Levinson purportedly entered Iran, March 8, The Washington Post reported that a "senior U.S. intelligence official" had confirmed that Ali Reza Asghari, a former Iranian deputy defense minister and commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who had gone missing in Turkey, actually had defected to the United States. (Two other less-publicized defections of senior Iranian officials to the West also have occurred recently.)
Due to this environment, the timing of Levinson's trip to Kish would appear to have placed him in the wrong place at the wrong time -- a situation Iran's PressTV aptly described as "a case of ordinary business running into extraordinarily bad circumstances."
The American-born Killer
Press reports indicate that Levinson, who has worked as a private security consultant since retiring from the FBI, traveled to Iran in an attempt to make contact with Iranian officials who could assist his firm in its efforts against the trafficking of counterfeit brand-name cigarettes in the region.
This is where Dawud Salahuddin -- born David Belfield in the United States -- enters the picture.
Belfield, going by his Islamic name, Salahuddin, told the United Kingdom's Financial Times he had been attempting to assist Levinson in his attempts to make Iranian contacts on the cigarette-smuggling front. Salahuddin claimed he met Levinson on March 8 at the Maryam Hotel in Kish, and that he was arrested after meeting with Levinson and held overnight by Iranian authorities before being released.
Salahuddin, however, has quite a history as a tool of the Iranian government. As David Belfield, he attended Howard University, but then converted to Islam after becoming involved in radical black activism, adopting Dawud Salahuddin as his Islamic name. Salahuddin eventually was recruited by Iranian intelligence and, on July 22, 1980, he killed former Iranian diplomat Ali Akbar Tabatabai in Bethesda, Md., on orders of his Iranian handlers as part of Iran's efforts to eliminate former supporters of the shah. The plot against Tabatabai appears to have been lifted out of the Hollywood movie "Three Days of the Condor." Salahuddin, who had stolen a U.S. Postal Service jeep, walked up to Tabatabai's front door dressed in a mail carrier's uniform and shot the Iranian diplomat in his front entry. After the killing, Salahuddin fled to Iran, where he was given refuge.
Salahuddin, who has remained in Iran, has worked as a reporter and actor. Using the screen name Hassan Tantai, Salahuddin starred in the 2001 movie "Kandahar," an Iranian film critical of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan. Salahuddin also claims to have spent several years in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets in the mid-to-late 1980s.
Over the past several years, Salahuddin has granted interviews to several Western journalists, and has openly admitted to having killed Tabatabai, rationalizing the act by saying Tabatabai posed a threat to the Islamic Republic. In a 1996 interview with ABC News, for example, Salahuddin said, "All governments kill traitors and all governments, if they can, kill people who are making strong attempts to overthrow them." When asked if he regretted the killing, Salahuddin replied, "No, I never lost any sleep over that incident."
Salahuddin has given some thought to returning to the United States, and has maintained communication with some of the law enforcement officials who have been tracking him. Salahuddin reportedly even wrote a letter to former Attorney General Janet Reno in 1994 to discuss the possibility of repatriation.
The Bottom Line
Due to Salahuddin's position as a high-profile American living in Iran, his ability to speak Farsi and his connections to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the IRGC, it is not surprising Levinson would seek to use Salahuddin as an interlocutor in his efforts to fight the trade in counterfeit cigarettes in Iran. However, these same traits also make it certain that Salahuddin's Iranian MOIS and IRGC contacts would be interested in Salahuddin's meeting with a U.S. citizen -- especially one who is a former FBI agent. Salahuddin has willingly done the bidding of the Iranians in the past, and as a fugitive from justice in the United States he is even more beholden to his Iranian masters. If asked to bring Levinson to them, Salahuddin would likely cooperate, though his cooperation would not necessarily be required, given the control the Iranians exercise.
There is a possibility Levinson was abducted or even killed by a criminal syndicate that is profiting from the counterfeit cigarette trade. Many criminal organizations from Russia and elsewhere are making hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of counterfeit cigarettes. However, due to Levinson's profile, he obviously was under tight MOIS surveillance from the time he stepped foot in Iran, and such surveillance, while intrusive and annoying, can at times be a useful deterrent to criminal activity. Even on the off chance Levinson did fall victim to a criminal plot, the MOIS would have witnessed it. In that case, the Iranian government would have no motive to deny any knowledge of Levinson.
The Iranian denial of any knowledge of Levinson strongly suggests Tehran is responsible for his disappearance. Given the environment in which Levinson vanished, it seems obvious that someone in Iran -- likely the IRGC, considering that its Arbil officers remain in U.S. custody -- viewed him as a handy bargaining chip. Granted, Levinson might not make the strongest chip, but the IRGC officers are not major figures either. Back-channel negotiations for a swap could be taking place.