I’ve been struck by the pushback against my story about Ali Reza Asgari and Prisoner X in Ayalon Prison. The Mossad, sympathetic journalists and Iranian exiles doing its bidding (purposely or not) have each chimed in with varying levels of disinformation over the past few days. I’ve already written here that Yossi Melman has taken personal offence at the claim of my source in Ehud Barak’s inner circle that Ali Reza Asgari was in Ayalon Prison and committed suicide there last month. Melman, as I reported, flat-out denies Asgari was ever in Israel.
But interestingly he doesn’t deny that Prisoner X is dead. Regarding the death, I wrote, based on several Israeli Haaretz reports of misdeeds within the intelligence apparatus, that the government story that he committed suicide was likely a cover and that he was murdered or died in Mossad custody.
Now, the Mossad or those who may inadvertently be advancing its agenda are putting out a counter-narrative which is instructive. Writing in Politico, Laura Rozen interviews two Iranian exiles, using them to rebut my story:
An Iranian-American activist knowledgeable about the 2006 defection of former Iranian deputy defense minister Gen. Ali-Reza Asgari tells POLITICO that Asgari was never in Israel, and that the story that he died in Israel – or that he died at all — is not true.
“The story is not true,” Pooya Dayanim, a Los Angeles-based Iranian pro-democracy activist told POLITICO Thursday. “I was somewhat observing this situation from the periphery from the time he left Iran. …The news is a complete fabrication and a fantasy.”
Who is Pooya Dayanim? He is a member of Los Angeles’ fabulously wealthy Iranian-Jewish community. He, along with most members of the community is a monarchist and loyal supporter of the Shah and his family. Dayanim is active in Aipac and once scheduled Reza Pahlevi, the Shah’s son, to speak at its national conference. Until, that is, Aipac’s Iran specialist discovered this and quashed it like a bug, realizing the damage it would do both to Aipac and Iranian Jews.
Dayanim was a Beverly Hills attorney until he was suspended from the practice of law for three years for using fraudulent bank documents to arrange immigration papers for fellow Iranians. He never renewed his license and doesn’t practice law as far as I know. Dayanim, according to another national Iranian-American leader I consulted, is the consummate opportunist. He started his life as a liberal reformer but moved gradually farther and farther right until now he’s publishing in the National Review, palling around with the Shah’s son, and acting knowingly or not as Mossad’s mouthpiece among Iranian Jews.
Another fellow Dayanim hangs out with is Hassan Daioleslam (aka “Dai”), a leader of the cultish, murderous Mujahadeen e-Khalq (MKO). Trita Parsi, director of the National Iranian American Council has sued Dai for libel and slander in a case that has been ongoing for some time. MKO is designated by the American government as a terrorist group. It is also a darling of the Mossad and collaborates with it in leaking fraudulent Iranian nuclear research documents to the world press. MKO also likely does Mossad’s bidding inside Iran acting as muscle for assassinations and attacks on military targets that have occurred over the past few years.
Pooya Dayanim is no more a “pro-democracy activist” than I am the King of Siam (or Persia). He’s a monarchist plain and simple. And I fear that Laura Rozen has been had by him in more ways than one. I don’t believe Dayanim is “knowledgeable” about Asgari’s case except whatever information he may glean from his fellow exile friends and possibly the Mossad itself. No, I’m not accusing Dayanim of being an agent of Mossad. He’s just a willing fellow traveler. He wants to be where the action is and this story does that for him in spades.
Interestingly, Rozen doesn’t explain just how he gained his supposed “knowledge” of Asgari’s status nor does Dayanim explain how he knows my story is a “fabrication.” She takes him at face value and he takes her for everything she’s worth journalistically.
Rozen also uses another Iranian exile of dubious character to bolster her story. Allegedly, Amir Ebrahimi is a good friend of Ali Reza Asgari. If you hear him tell it, it was Ebrahimi who persuaded his friend to defect. The exile, again, if you believe his version of events, is in regular contact with Asgari, who is comfortably ensconced in exile in some western country:
Among the people who Asgari contacted for help when he was seeking asylum in the West is his friend and fellow former IRGC official, Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, who had previously received asylum in Germany. Ebrahimi, now based in Europe, has written on his Farsi-language blog that Asgari is safe in a western country.
‘Ali Reza is live and I speak [with him] last week,” Ebrahimi said by e-mail Saturday of Asgari.
There are a few problems, however, with Rozen’s description of Ebrahimi and the latter’s own claims. First, he was never an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official. As Prof. Sahimi writes:
Amir Farshad Ebrahimi is a former member of Ansar-e Hezbollah (supporters of Party of God) that used to attack reformers, intellectuals, book stores, etc. For some reason he turned against his group, made a taped confession of all he and his group had done, and who in the government led them, and gave it to Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Laureate for Peace, which she passed to Interior Ministry. Ebadi was arrested and jailed…Ebrahimi left Iran and is now in exile in Europe. I have always had the feeling that Ebrahimi did what he did so that he could get political asylum in Europe and the comfortable life that comes with it.
And most tellingly, Allison Kaplan Sommer, a regular contributor to Jerusalem Post, writes for Pajamas Media in 2007 a damning portrayal of Ebrahimi’s claims regarding Asgari’s so-called defection:
[Ebrahimi’s] account appeared promising. After all, it provided documentation — something all of the rumors, speculation and anonymously sourced news stories haven’t provided until now.
There’s just one problem – the organizations whose documents these are meant to be, say they are fake.
…The documents come from the blog of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, someone who claims to know Asgari and who himself defected from Iran in February of 2006. Ebrahimi received the documents which appeared to prove that Asgari sought refugee status from the United Nations, from a source he describes as “a friend who is 100 percent reliable: who works for an unnamed organization in Turkey.”
He says that he initiated the search. “I am very interested in this story because I knew Asgari personally,” Ebrahimi told Pajamas Media by telephone from his home in Turkey. “We served together in the Revolutionary Guards.”
Ebrahimi, who today describes himself a human rights activist, graduate student and author living in Turkey and Germany.
In the account published in his blog, the Iranian exile claims that Asgari, while in Istanbul approached the UN High Commission for Refugees and the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) for help in arranging his defection. However, the documents Ebrahimi uses to authenticate his claims don’t appear genuine:
When contacted by Pajamas Media, Emma Viaud, communications officer for the ICMC said, “that the validity of the ICMC letters that appear in the article is not clear, we have reason to believe that they are fraudulent.” Later, when pressed for a more definitive statement, she said, “I can now confirm that the documents that appear in the article are forgeries and have not been issued by or with the knowledge of ICMC.”
The UNHCR spokesman Abeer Etefa said that “after a quick search, it does not appear that we have a person with this name granted a refugee status. Also the document that you referred to on the blog seems to be not authentic.”
Interestingly, photo images of the above documents used to be displayed at Ebrahimi’s Flickr site and Sommer linked to them in her 2007 article. But the images are gone now. I wonder why. Further, one has to ask how Ebrahimi secured these documents since clearly he didn’t get them from Asgari. I can think of a few intelligence agencies considered quite adept at forging such documents and cloning passports to boot. Hint, hint.
Another fatal flaw in the Iranian exile’s story involves justifying the claim that Asgari’s family fled Iran with him when he defected. Since clearly Ebrahimi has two wives remaining with their family in Iran, Ebrahimi says that Asgari has not two but three wives and that it is his third wife that is with him in the west. Only one problem with this–Asgari, as I wrote above, has only two wives and they’re both in Iran. There is no third wife. A figment of the man’s hyperactive imagination.
Yonat Friling, FoxNews Jerusalem bureau chief, has also written a story in which she succeeded in getting an interesting reply from the Mossad:
Both Israeli prison authority and the Israeli Secret Service “Shin Bet” refused to respond to Fox News’s questions, claiming the information is under gag order. However, an unnamed Security source tells us that this is a “fabricated tale. Al Asgari was never in Israel. “ The source claims that he lives with his family in a western country, under their constant observation.
Note that the Mossad source uses the exact same word to describe my work, “fabrication.” Coincidence? Or coordinated talking-points? There is one blatant lie in this statement (by her source, not Friling). Asgari has two wives both of whom live in Iran. He has no family outside Iran. Though again, Ebrahimi’s fictional third wife certainly fits right into the Mossad narrative. Given this falsehood I think we can safely doubt pretty much everything in the entire statement. These two guys, Ebrahimi and Dayanim are the Clifford Irvings or the Iranian exile movement. Frauds. Wanna-bes.
Regarding Asgari’s whereabouts, I can only report what my source told me, while conceding that Yossi Melman’s vehemence in rejecting my report may indicate my source is wrong. But if so, he is only wrong about this particular part of the story. Melman, an expert on the Mossad, has never denied he was kidnapped either by the Mossad or in collaboration with other western intelligence agencies. So we still have the matter of a major Iranian military officer disappeared for the past four years.
If my version of events concerning Asgari is wrong, it hasn’t been proven by any of this nonsense. And the blatant falsehood and fabrications of the Mossad and their Iranian friends make you wonder what the real story is and why they go to such lengths to obfuscate it.
Very few intelligence agencies in the world, when facing the type of exposure this case has received in the past month, simply stonewall. Most agencies and governments will respond in some fashion. If Asgari did indeed defect willingly as the Mossad claims, they would produce some proof of this. Just about the only intelligence agency I know with the balls to stare this scandal straight in the eye without blinking or flinching is the Mossad.
I have very little doubt that Asgari is or was under Mossad (or western intelligence agency) control and that he never defected. As Prof. Muhammad Sahimi, an Iranian-American expert on the Iranian nuclear program and the regime told me, Iranian Revolutionary Guard generals do not willingly defect. They are made of steel, the truest of the true believers. They are devout Muslims. They do not abandon two families and never make any attempt to communicate with them.
Apart from Asgari, what remains is that Prisoner X (whether Asgari or someone else), a high-level security prisoner, died under mysterious circumstances in Ayalon Prison. Even without mixing Asgari into this story, this alone testifies to a grievous misdeed on the part of the Mossad, which was handling him. Further, a man was killed and the Israeli secret police won’t let their own citizens know what happened. Yes, the dead man was likely neither Israeli nor Jew and so expendable. Why should the average Israeli worry their pretty little heads over such matters? It’s just the price of doing business in a dirty, rough neck of the Middle East woods. Right?
H/t to Kalea and Dedi for their assistance.
Rest assured Pooya Dayanim does not represent Iranian-Americans, Iranian Jews, Iranians, or any other extrapolation. His innaccurate and published remarks illustrate that he has failed to rehabilitate as the California Bar Association had asked. He exudes an appearance of impropriety when he publishes lies about the Iranian Jewish community in Iran, on Iranian.com. He should not be a member of this noble profession and, further, should not act under the color and authority of a licensed attorney when doing so, if he has. His purported association with a well known terrorist group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, also makes him a national security risk. In all likelihood, they were the culprits behind Alireza Pahlavi’s apparent suicide on Tuesday. The Iranian community, 150+ million worldwide, are globally united against the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq), who helped to depose the Shah and are now under a new name, the National Council of Resistance [Out]side Iran (the NCRI). The State Department and Republicans of America should know they are a grave danger to Americans as well. They killed their own countrymen (sided with Saddam and worse) and will turn on America when given the chance. Maryam Rajavi and Masoud Rajavi are opportunists, Islamo-Marxist terrorists and leaders of a cult of this type. The FBI should and must look into Dai and Pooya to see if this association is true. America First — ALWAYS! What country do these jokers think they live in at the moment? Israel? Enough is enough.
Fr. what I know I wouldn’t say that Dayanim is a member of MKO or there’s any formal relationship. It’s more like a relationship of convenience. Since Israeli intelligence is close to MKO, then Dayanim is as well.
Why cant AIPAC act like a domestic lobby with concerns about Americans rather than one that screws Americans for Israeli interests?
Material support [which definition has recently been awarded broad latitude] to terrorist groups is punishable under U.S. law. The MEK is a terrorist organization and all who associate with it should be arrested immediately, given that peace activists in the U.S. have recently been rounded up and accused of providing material support to terrorist organizations even though it was done innocently through third parties whom the activists had no clue they even knew a member of a terrorist group, [ex, Hamas] which makes this is a much flimsier excuse for indictment than indicting a ham sandwich.
SO, if we apply the above standard to this case it appears there is fire where there is smoke, but because Israelis and Jewish Iranians are involved the DOUBLE-STANDARD laws come into play and take precedence.
I don’t know diddly s..t about Dayanim or his intrigues with Iranian terrorist groups. But please spare me the “America First” crap. America Firsters are the ones who have been causing all the trouble in this country for the past fifty years. If the U.S. is becoming an authoritarian state, it is the fault of America First mentality.
Aren’t you also jumping to reckless conclusions by accusing anyone of complicity in Alireza’s apparent suicide?
Let’s see how it pans out. They’ll try to blame the IRI, who was not threatened nor had reach in the US. America first means isolation as Washington wanted, not America first in the Middle East. We should be selling products, not looting or buying them by subcontracting the empire building process. Empires, as any reading of history will show, simply collapse. America revolted against an Empire, and our forefathers never wished us to become one. JFK famously said Pax Americana by force of weapons and imperialism is not a way to achievement. Look at what they did to him. I care not to step on everyone’s toes as everyone, like Americans I know and myself, are not into creating blowback and a nation run by security paranoia and commercial superficialities.
Gene, and everyone else, please also stop putting me into categories. I don’t toe any party line, I don’t do cookie cutter arguments, I’m not interested in any -isms or particular forms of government that can’t check their power over individuals’ lives, I’m not left or right, center, up or down, Monarchist or Islamist, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Pagan, aethist, nor agnostic. I’m real and human. I tolerate all individuals. I wish for a positive trajectory in the world that excludes human suffering. I don’t believe in a utopia, but I believe we can try to have one if everyone listens to reason. I don’t look at this world through the regular prisms. I revere people like Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Jesus (as a human), John Lennon, Albert Einstein (not a pacifist, but a realist), and anyone who stands for human progression and lack of malice.
Also, Gene, please calm down. Those “America Firsters” hijacked a good thing just like any other radical. Everything is good, but only in moderation.
Persian Advocate’s point is entirely valid. Would you prefer Iranian-Americans whose primary allegiance was to Israel & the Mossad? He’s make the entirely reasonable pt. that Americans should hold America’s interests first & not those of another nation whether it be Iran or Israel.
Both PA and Richard miss my point. I am not categorizing you, PA, only trying to calm YOU down. And teach you not to throw around names like America Firsters who have been a major detriment to American society. They are the type whence grow all the right-wing nuts from Christian evangelicals to Tea Partiers, and allow the neocons to push their Project for the American Century agenda on the rest of the world. Gung ho American jingoism is not a good thing.
Richard takes the first opportunity to criticize me for what he thinks is my anti-Americanism and/or anti-Zionism. I am neither. Like PA, and you, I am for justice and freedom. If America and Zionism suffocate those two categories, and they do today,I am against them.
I didn’t say you were anti-American nor did I at all refer to you being anti Zionist. I wish you’d be more careful in characterizing what others say about you & yr views. I only criticized yr statement that PA’s conviction that Iranian Americans should be loyal to America should be characterized as “America Firstism.” It’s not.
Richard, be careful not to use broad labels. The Iranian-American community is very much loyal to the country of its citizenry, but also to its culture. This should be the same for American Jews, particularly those who aren’t even substantially connected to Israel in any way. It seems as if AIPAC’s agenda is Israel’s rather than Americans who are also of Israeli origin. That is f*cked up, and every American who finds out would agree.
For others, check out http://niaccouncil.org/ to see what a REAL Domestic Lobby looks like. AIPAC continues to have undue influence on foreign policy, including America’s complicity in aiding the occupation and settlements — both illegal activities on the international scale. No lobby should be able to promote illegal activities, it is against the very spirit of American law.
And then there’s the little matter of the article that appeared in a Lebanese paper, ad-Diyar, that Ms Rozen so conveniently refers to, and which spread like wildfire in the Lebanese press, that Asgari allegedly appeared 8 MONTHS AGO before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Investigative Committee to testify against Hezbollah in the case of Hariri’s assassination.
Why has no one challenged this allegation by demanding they mention the source of the information or demanding from the U.N. which created the Tribunal to provide a silent videotape of Asgari testifying before the Committee, since Iran specifically asked the U.N. to look into his fate and the U.N. has an obligation to respond truthfully to this request?
Someone needs to explore this angle in depth.
You’re right Kalea. No doubt people already are inquiring, and something will come out of it sooner or later. Very interesting!
Richard, this is so funny it is unbelievable.
Here are the facts:
1. Brigadier General Ali-Reza Asgari (1 November 1952) was an Iranian general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, [1] deputy defense minister, and cabinet member of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami
2. In the 1980s Asgari was commander of the Revolutionary Guard in Lebanon
3. Asgari had been “pushed aside” from his ministerial role after President Ahmadinejad, a former rival, came in to power in 2005
4. Asgari disappeared in Turkey in early 2007
5. On March 8 2007 The Washington Post said that Asgari was willingly cooperating with Western intelligence officials, and was providing information on Hezbollah and its Iranian connections
6. On March 12 the German Minister of Defense, Franz Josef Jung, was asked about the disappearance during a visit to Ankara, Turkey. Jung answered, “I cannot say anything on this issue.”[32]
7. According to The Sunday Telegraph, Asgari’s defection was part of a CIA program called “the Brain Drain”, which began in 2005 and later netted Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri.[33]
Asgari’s history shows he lost his sit of power hence, he has a great reason to defect.
The US has some history (as demonstrated with Shahram Amiri) with being involved in the defection of Iranian officials.
Your assertion that he died comes via a middle man whom you trust, but you don’t know who is sources are. You do have sources in Israel who used you as a way to void gag orders before.
You ripped to shreds the reputation of both Ebrahimi and Dayanim, but I have few remarks about it:
1. Even though Ebrahimi was the one who apparently published the UNHCR document, you don’t know if he was the one who circulated it, you can only assume.
2. Their claims does not really matter as they have no official capacity in the matter.
Israel response
1. Officially Israel didn’t provide any response and they will not, neither did the Germans nor the Americans, and Israel will not act any differently; asserting blame from that fact is ridiculous.
2. Y. Melman who is known for having great connection within the Israeli intelligence agencies, denied Asgari was ever in Israel, gave a hint as for the identity of prisoner X. (and Israeli who was arrested for espionage)
Based on all of the above, it seems that you are headed in the wrong direction, for a matter of fact, I think that someone is using you to flash some news and see what will be coming out of the pipe.
This modus operandi aka flashing news and seeing what comes off the other end of the pipe is a common behavior of intelligence agencies, there is a lot of disinformation going around, and you have a role in it.
Much of what you listed as “facts” are anything but. They are assertions (starting fr. #5), some of which are backed w. no evidence whatsoever except that provided by Ebrahimi, who we’ve seen is a fraud & liar.
Nonsense. Show us a single other high level IRG figure who has defected for any reason. If you can’t yr argument falls like a house of cards.
Amiri’s case is a single one & it failed pretty miserably didn’t it?
I resent & object to yr terminology & won’t accept yr using such terms. Not at all. NO ONE “uses” me least of all you or any source. Don’t try to play me (referring to some private correspondence), don’t try to manipulate me, don’t try to psyche me out. Mark my words well. Others before have tried this & they’ve ended up on the trash heap where they belong.
Not sure what you mean. If you mean I’m not sure who “fabricated” the document that’s true. But the Mossad could easily have done so. As for “circulating” it Ebrahimi himself did that by placing it on his Flickr pg. where it was acessible to all.
I don’t recall Melman giving any hint that Prisoner X was an Israeli arrested for espionage. But if he did & you can provide a link, I’d be very interested to read it. I have heard this rumor before but have no idea how or whether to credit it.
As do you. You are but one of a large number of Israelis who’ve written me privately boasting either explicitly or implicitly of excellent Israeli intelligence connections. In yr case implicitly. So you’re playing me as much as anyone else is. Keep that in mind.
Ilan’s points are all spin and wholly inaccurate. He exemplifies the exact content of this blog: there is a campaign of misinformation here to discredit Richard and cause undue ambiguity over this story. With respect to the numbered points above:
1-4: will have to fact check, but they prove nothing new
5- the Washingon Post has no inside source to substantiate Asgari’s defection claim. Why would he leave a wife and children behind to plea for his return in tears so authentically and in such a public way? This is a dead man you’re smearing… That’s disgusting.
6- proves nothing.
7- you have named Shahram Amiri, who similarly to Asgari, claims he was abducted and tortured. He strangely escaped. But now, his story makes more sense. Thank for the connection! Here he is explaining how he was forced to make a fake video of his defection (one in which you can see him visibly reading a script): http://m.youtube.com/watch?v%3DYhiow35bkWw&tbs=vid:1&ved=0CCIQtwIwAzgK&usg=AFQjCNHi5D6ovFFvUtj3cnXVCJuCPDR4Jg
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v%3D6b5yR90C7D8&tbs=vid:1&ved=0CCoQtwIwBQ&usg=AFQjCNECW3cj2IulORx-wAzsuCo3Uuqi-A
——-
The whole of your argument shows YOUR modus operandi along with Israel’s
I have to share my experiences with Iranian Jews in Los Angeles. I grew up in Orange County with Jewish and Iranian friends, neighbors on both sides were Iranian, one Jewish, one Catholic. Never had a problem with Jewish or Iranian people they were my friends and neighbors.
Then I went to uni in LA and needed dental work, looked for a “Middle Eastern” looking name for a dentist since my last dentist was Middle Eastern ended up with a dentist that became irate when he found out I was Palestinian and from Iraq. I should have left at this point but I was young, naive and rather zealous in my evangelical faith and wanted to show him some love and grace.
This dentist:
1. after drilling my teeth refused to use composite fillings and filled my mouth with amalgam/ silver/ mercury even though i already had composite
2. a few months after this procedure i was diagnosed with mutually exclusive symptoms of ulcerative colitis and crohn’s disease which are associated with mercury poisoning from the fillings i had
3. years later i had an enlarged thyroid that was thought to be cancerous, on the same side of my neck where all the silver fillings coincided
Another experience I had was when I was studying in the main library at UCLA and had an available seat next to me in a crowded study area. I offered the seat to another student who was looking for a place to sit. In conversation he asked me where I was from and I answered Palestinian fro Iraq, he replied with “so I have two reasons to hate you” in a very serious and derogatory tone. Suddenly I understood the horrible experience I had with the dentist.
I am not saying all Iranian-Jews in Los Angeles are horrible people, but my experience was one that revealed brainwashing to hate me and I will avoid business with them in the future. I’ve only shared a bit of all what happened with these two men, but those were my 2 of 2 experiences with Iranian Jews in LA and as anyone can see there is a strong sentiment of justified hate from those two men which left with the belief that this sentiment is definitive of the Iranian Jewish community in Los Angeles. I would love to be proved wrong, but I won’t be placing my body in the line of their fire/ anger anymore each year I discover more mercury poisoning related problems in my health/ organs.
Peace,
Rana
That is very awful and I feel empathy for you, Rana. The truth is that the racism is a modus operandi mainstream Zionist culture. As an Iranian-American, nearly all the stigmatization of our community comes from the propaganda programs of Israel and its lobbies. I wouldn’t differentiate between the pages of Mein Kampf and much of what I read about Iranians brought to you by lobbies and card carrying members thereof (AIPAC and J Street). Dershowitz is as least as foaming at the mouth as Das Führer in my opinion. Godwin’s “law” be damned, you act like a bigot and racist you shall be interpreted in my humble opinion to be one, especially when you print articles in that vein publically.
When mainstream zionists threaten to kill people for differences of opinion? Stalin. When they ran over Rachel Corrie with a bulldozer? Townsmen Square.
And if one doesn’t like these associations, then stop causing other people to opine that way about you. (Persian Advocate’s “Law”)
Err Tianamen Square* (spell check on blackberries is atrocious!)
Could this be the reason that Prisoner X died:
“Dan Yakir, chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the country’s oldest human rights group, said: “There is no information on whether this person has been charged, whether he has been tried or whether he has been convicted.”
In a letter to the Israeli attorney general last week which has yet to receive a response, Mr Yakir protested the secrecy surrounding Mr X’s detention.
“It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place,” he wrote.”
Because of the article first published in Yediot Ahronot “Quoting unidentified officials within the Israeli penitentiary service, it disclosed that Mr X was being held in Unit 15, a wing of Ayalon prison that contains a single cell.”
It went on to describe his situation. Thus, Richard, you are not responsible for Prisoner X’s fate, since Yediot Ahronot broke the Prisoner X story and it was quickly taken down by the IDF precisely to avoid what I quoted above from a Telegraph article I’m linking.
If indeed Prisoner X was murdered and I feel as you do, that he was, it would no doubt be because human rights groups started questioning and demanding an explanation. This would in turn lead to others demanding visitation of the prisoner. So it seems logical to conclude that with that impending, imminent threat, they got rid of him and avoided what might be a scandal or worse.
If indeed, he were a spy, why on earth would Israeli authorities feel threatened that his identity might be revealed! The Telegraph article uses the example of Marcus Klinberg to state that Israel has tried and sentenced a man to prison in secret in the past. But if indeed, this were a similar case, the public would understand that the man was a traitor and got what he deserved. Case closed.
BUT, this is not the case here. They felt genuinely threatened by the possibility that his identity might be exposed no doubt because of the explosive implications the truth about his identity might have.
There is nothing out of the ordinary in The Telegraph article except for the fact that it mentions the “espionage” angle.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7844607/Israel-gripped-by-identity-of-Prisoner-X.html
HOWEVER, I came across an interview on an Iranian news site with Amir Farshad Ebrahimi where he describes the “Rescue Committee” he is associated with. I get the impression that this “rescue committee” is merely a front for mis-information and that its members are perhaps intelligence agents working with him perhaps to “rescue defectors/dissidents” but they appear also to be there to disseminate false information and/or timely information through Ebrahimi to the press.
He’s trying to spin the fact that Shahram Amiri was not “who he pretended to be”. I find the Amiri story fascinating because it almost feels like Amiri was used as a cover for what happened to Asgari. Whatever Ebrahimi says, we must think and suspect the OPPOSITE. Is he covering for Amiri with this false spin???
“During his time in the US, Amiri appeared to have made three videos – one saying he had decided to continue his studies in the US, another saying he was being held captive and a third claiming to be on the run from the CIA. In the one in which he states that he’s doing fine and wished to continue his education in the U.S. he “strangely” states: “I am not involved in weapons research and have no experience and knowledge in this field.”
Okay, notice how that line is meant to protect him. U.S. officials stated he made the other two seemingly contradictory tapes also as protection, in other words, to be able to return to Iran without suffering repercussions, in other words to “fool” Iranian authorities into thinking he was captured, tortured etc. because it’s been put in the press that his family was being threatened. But at the same time Ebrahimi tried to say he was useless and turned on them. Why the contradiction here?
Now, suddenly: “Iranbriefing.net – run by a US-based group that normally reports on political prisoners and the activities of Iran’s revolutionary guard – said the scientist, Shahram Amiri, had been interrogated intensively for three months in Tehran before spending two months in solitary confinement, where his treatment left him hospitalised for a week.”
WHY NOW? WHY ARE WE FINDING OUT ABOUT THIS NOW? If someone knew this was going on for three months WHY was it put out there by this group NOWWW?
Something is very wrong with this picture, please help me figure it out. I started this by trying to connect the Asgari case with Amiri. A pattern and link between these two is being created somehow.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/04/iranian-nuclear-scientist-tortured-claim
I started this with: “Could this be the reason that Prisoner X died?” and the fact that the truth was about to be exposed and one thing led to the other.
The timing of this “information” on Amiri’s fate in Iran these months seems so convenient, but why?
Sorry, I forgot to post the link for the Ebrahimi interview:
http://www.payvand.com/news/10/jul/1177.html
Necessity is the mother of all cover ups.
-Persian Adva Edison
Richard, this is somewhat OT but I thought you would find GQ’s Ronen Bergman’s detailed description of the fumbled Dubai hit job and Meir Dagan’s Mossad of interest. This quote is emblematic of the crippling Israeli hubris:
“As one very senior German intelligence expert told me: “The Israelis’ problem has always been that they underestimate everyone—the Arabs, the Iranians, Hamas. They are always the smartest and think they can hoodwink everyone all the time. A little more respect for the other side—even if you think he is a dumb Arab or a German without imagination—and a little more modesty would have saved us all from this embarrassing entanglement.”
http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-issues/201101/the-dubai-job-mossad-assassination-hamas?printable=true¤tPage=4
Thanks. Interesting that identified his source as German in GQ but in Yediot he wasn’t that specific.