- Iran has admitted for the first time it has an open case against former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing during an unauthorized CIA mission in 2007
- Levinson disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island and photos and video of him in an orange jumpsuit emerged in 2010 and 2011
- Tehran’s Justice Department said prosecutors had an ongoing case against him
- The Trump administration recently offered $20 million for information on him
- Iran did not elaborate on when the case started or on Levinson’s location
Iran is acknowledging for the first time it has an open case before its Revolutionary Court over the 2007 disappearance of a former FBI agent on an unauthorized CIA mission to the country.
In a filing to the United Nations, Iran said the case over Robert Levinson was ‘on going,’ without elaborating, but the development has renewed questions over what happened to him.
It wasn’t immediately clear how long the case had been open, nor the circumstances by which it started.
However, it comes amid a renewed push to find him with an offer of $20 million for information from the Trump administration amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran has admitted for the first time it has an open case against former FBI agent Robert Levinson. He is pictured in one of a series of images obtained by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty group which handed them over to Levinson’s wife Christine in April 2011, who opted not to release them at that time. It is not clear how Radio Liberty came into possession of the photos, taken after Levison was taken hostage
The money is in addition to $5 million that had been earlier offered by the FBI.
The Associated Press on Saturday obtained the text of Iran’s filing to the U.N.’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
‘According to the last statement of Tehran’s Justice Department, Mr. Robert Alan Levinson has an on going case in the Public Prosecution and Revolutionary Court of Tehran,’ the filing said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Court typically handles espionage cases and others involving smuggling, blasphemy and attempts to overthrow its Islamic government.
Westerners and Iranian dual nationals with ties to the West often find themselves tried and convicted in closed-door trials in these courts, only later to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations.