An American fugitive living in Iran told the Christian Science Monitor that he saw six Iranian policemen “detain” Robert Levinson in 2007. The account by African-American Dawud Salahuddin contradicts years of denials by Iran that it was not involved with is disappearance.
The U.S. government also has consistently claimed that Levinson traveled to an Iranian Persian Gulf island as a private citizen despite new reports that confirm that the former Jewish FBI agent was working for the CIA when he landed in Iran.
Levinson has met with Salahuddin at a hotel on the resort island of Kish to recruit him as a source, the newspaper said. Salahuddin stated that plainclothes policemen “took me away, and when I left – we were down in the lobby – Levinson was surrounded by four Iranian police.”
Salahuddin spent the night in jail, and when he returned to the hotel the next day, he was told that Levinson has been taken away in custody.
Salahuddin “believes an arrangement may have been reached with Iran to secure Levinson’s release,” according to the Monitor. “So if he shows up in a three-piece suit, clean shaven, and brand new shoes in Muscat [Oman] in the next couple of days, I won’t be the least bit surprised.”