TEHRAN: The Iranian judiciary denied on Tuesday that it was holding former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing almost two years ago on an island in the Gulf.
“We do not have anyone with this name in our prisons, no cases have been formed in prisons or by judicial authorities,” judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told reporters when asked whether Levinson was being held in a secret jail in Iran.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month called on Iran to release Levinson, who retired from service a decade ago. According to his family, Levinson travelled to the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 to investigate cigarette counterfeiting in the region. Florida Senator Bill Nelson told this month that he believed Levinson was alive and that “he’s being held by the Iranians.”
The report further said that “some US intelligence officials” believe Tehran may consider releasing Levinson as part of a swap for several Iranians seized by US military forces in northern Iraq in 2007. The mystery of Levinson’s disappearance is a further strain in relations between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic ties for nearly three decades and remain at loggerheads over the Iranian nuclear drive.
source : jang.com.pk
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