US sanctions two Iranians linked to Levinson's disappearance
Mohammad Basri and Ahmad Khazaei, two intelligence officials of the Islamic Republic, were blacklisted by the US for their alleged involvement in the disappearance of a former FBI agent in Iran. Washington says Levinson was kidnapped and killed in captivity.
Mohammad Basri and Ahmad Khazaei, two agents of the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence, are among the latest individuals to be added to the Trump administration's sanctions list.
According to this decision, any assets and potential accounts of the two in the United States will be frozen, and no American citizen will be allowed to contact them. Any foreign individual or bank that contacts the two for financial facilities and transactions will also be subject to punishment.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that the Iranian regime withheld information about Levinson for 13 years: "Senior Iranian officials kidnapped Robert and then unleashed a wave of disinformation to deflect attention from the regime's role."
Levinson disappeared on the island of Kish in April 2007. The FBI had offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Levinson's capture.
His wife and son concluded in March 2020 that the former FBI agent was no longer alive.
Robert Levinson's wife posted photos in January 2013 showing him in an orange suit. In the photos, Levinson was holding a piece of paper that read: "Can't or won't you help me?"
Washington says the available evidence indicates that he very likely died in captivity.
Sanctions on two intelligence officials from the Islamic Republic were announced in the final days of the Trump administration. The United States cited the lengthy legal process for this decision as the reason.
Reuters writes that one reason for this move in the final weeks of Trump's tenure in the White House could be to make it harder for Biden to negotiate a return to the JCPOA; meaning that any return to the nuclear agreement would be contingent on the release of American citizens imprisoned in the country.
"We all expect negotiations to take place next year. But there should be no agreement without the release of citizens who have been unjustly detained," a senior US official told Reuters.
In October of this year, a state court in Washington ordered the Iranian government to pay more than $1.4 billion for the disappearance of Robert Levinson on Iranian soil.
Last March, Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations, said that the Islamic Republic's authorities had no information about Levinson's fate and that he was not in the regime's custody.
Currently, at least three American citizens are imprisoned in Iran. All three, Baqer and Siamak Namazi, and Morad Tahbaz, are charged with espionage.
Source: DW
