Today.Az » World news » Iranian nuclear scientist works for CIA in U.S.
31 March 2010 [12:32] - Today.Az
An Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared last year is living in the United States and working for the CIA, a news report said.
The defection of Shahram Amiri, a nuclear physicist, was dubbed "an intelligence coup" in the Central Intelligence Agency's spying activities against Iran's nuclear programme, ABC News said Tuesday, citing sources briefed on the operation by the US intelligence agency.
Amiri disappeared in June during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, the Iranian government said. He reportedly taught at a university with close links to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.
His defection was reportedly part of a long-term plan by the CIA. It is said to have contacted him via an intermediary with an offer of resettlement in the US.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki last year accused the US of kidnapping the scientist, who is in his early 30s.
"The significance of the coup will depend on how much the scientist knew in the compartmentalized Iranian nuclear programme," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism official who now works as a consultant for the news department of the US television network ABC.
"Just taking one scientist out of the programme will not really disrupt it," he said.
Former US intelligence officials told ABC the CIA has been trying to recruit Iranian nuclear scientists since the 1990s.
ABC cited sources saying Amiri had confirmed US assessments of Iran's nuclear programme during his extensive debriefing by the CIA.
/Trend News/
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