http://www.smh.com.au/world/iranian-nuclear-scientist-defected-20100401-rf60.html
Iranian nuclear scientist 'defected' April 1, 2010 WASHINGTON: A leading Iranian nuclear scientist has defected to the United States and is working with the CIA, the US television network ABC reported. Shahram Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s , disappeared in June 2009 after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage. ABC News said that US intelligence agents had described the defection as ''an intelligence coup'' in US efforts to undermine Iran's nuclear program. Dr Amiri's disappearance ''was part of a long-planned CIA operation to get him to defect'', ABC reported, citing unnamed people briefed on the operation by US intelligence officials. It said the CIA approached him in Iran through an intermediary who made an offer of resettlement on behalf of the US. On October 7, the Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, charged that there was US involvement in Dr Amiri's disappearance. ''We have obtained documents that show US interference in the disappearance of Shahram Amiri in Saudi Arabia,'' the Fars news agency quoted him as saying. Mr Mottaki said that Dr Amiri had been arrested in Saudi Arabia. ''We consider Saudi Arabia responsible for the situation of Shahram Amiri and we consider Americans to have been involved in his arrest,'' the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying. In October the Iranian newspaper Javan (Young) described Dr Amiri as a researcher at the Malek-Ashtar University of Technology in Tehran. The institution is closely connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The US President, Barack Obama, said on Tuesday that he wanted tough new United Nations sanctions imposed within ''weeks'' on Iran over its nuclear enrichment program. While the US, Israel and other nations suspect that Iran is trying to develop atomic weapons, Tehran insists its nuclear program is merely designed to meet its domestic energy needs. Agence France-Presse [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
