Pakistani Embassy Issues Bizarre Denial That Scientist Is There

Arrangements Being Made for Iranian Scientist to Leave US

It is sort of hard to imagine that he story of the long-missing Iranian scientist Shahram Amiri could get any more bizarre after he went missing last year en route to Mecca only to turn up at the doorstep of Pakistan’s embassy in Washington DC claiming to have escaped from CIA custody.

But after a flurry of media reports, including an interview of Amiri from inside the Iranian interests section of the Pakistani embassy, Pakistani embassy spokesmen issued a statement that the scientist, who by now had already been broadcast on television from inside the embassy, isn’t actually inside the embassy.

In fact the officials insisted that no one showed up at their embassy and they have no one inside the embassy facility even matching the description of the scientist on the site, again, after everyone had already seen an Amiri interview broadcast from that very site.

The US State Department insists that Amiri is “free to leave” the country whenever he wants and denied that he was ever kidnapped in the first place, claiming that he had been “just visiting” America for the past 14 months, during which he was inexplicably incommunicado and during which the US denied even being aware of his existence let alone knowing his whereabouts.

And though obviously nothing can be confirmed at this point, reports suggest that there are talks underway for making arrangements for Amiri to leave the United States and return home. Exactly when this will happen, however, remains to be seen.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.