Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Mystery over missing Iran scientist - 0 views
english.aljazeera.net/...200910813627667612.html
Iran USA politics Saudi Arabia nuclear program defection
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Washington has denied any involvement
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Amiri, who is said to be a researcher at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, disappeared after he went on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June.
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His family in Tehran said he was closely questioned by Saudi police at the airport and later called his wife from Medina, in Saudi Arabia, before apparently vanishing.
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Iranian officials have not publicly identified him as a nuclear scientist, referring to him only as an Iranian citizen.
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"We have found documents that prove US interference in the disappearance of the Iranian pilgrim Shahram Amiri in Saudi Arabia,"
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Meir Javedanfar, an Iran analyst based in Tel Aviv, said the most likely scenario was that Amiri had defected.
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we can't rule out that he perhaps walked in himself with the information in order to give himself up and work with the Americans."
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Turkish, Arabic and Israeli media suggested he defected to the West, but his family has dismissed that.
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Javedanfar also said Amiri's disappearance in Saudi Arabia would be of particular concern to Tehran.
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"They scored a victory in the Lebanese elections where Hezbollah [which is backed by Iran] lost, and now we see the Saudi king in Damascus. The Iranian press see that as an effort by Riyadh to reduce Iran's hand.
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"If you put all these together, I think the Iranian government is particularly worried that this happened on Saudi soil."
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Malek Ashtar University, where Amiri reportedly worked, is involved in the implementation of "special national research projects" and has faculties in aerospace, electrical engineering and other topics, according to the university's website.
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Amiri disappeared more than three months before the disclosure of a second uranium enrichment facility that Iran has been building near the city of Qom.
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Diplomats say it did so only after learning that Western intelligence agencies had discovered the site.