Israel Matzav

Iranian nuclear physicist missing since May, may have disclosed Qom

Well, isn't this interesting? PBS is reporting that an Iranian nuclear physicist, Shahram Amiri, who was working at the recently discovered nuclear plant in Qom, went missing in May after traveling to Saudi Arabia for the haj pilgrimage.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Ghashghavi, has confirmed that Amiri is missing.

When asked by a reporter during an Oct. 5 press conference whether Amiri has defected to the West by seeking political asylum in Saudi Arabia, he responded that "he has disappeared there."

But Jahan News, an Iranian website close to the conservatives, reported that a Saudi official said that Amiri has received political asylum in Saudi Arabia.

In a joint press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicholas Sarkozy of France on September 25, President Obama stated that, "earlier this year, there was an accumulation of evidence that gave us high confidence that this [the Qom site] was intended to be a uranium enrichment facility." (Emphasis in italics throughout article author's.)

President Obama also said that, "We began consulting with our partners earlier this summer to coordinate the disclosure of the site."

The official U.S. statement about the Qom site said, "Earlier this year, we developed information that gave us increased confidence that the [Qom] facility was a uranium enrichment site."

U.S. intelligence officials have said that while they have known for several years about the Qom facility, their confidence about its purpose "increased measurably this year."

All four statements keep referring back to a time period that coincides with Amiri's disappearance in Saudi Arabia.

Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki recently complained that Amiri had been 'kidnapped.'

Hmmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:13 PM