Ali-Reza Asgari

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Ali-Reza Asgari ( listen ? / I ; PersianAudio file / audio sample علیرضا عسگری, DMG ʿAlī-Reża ʿAsgarī ; also: Alireza Asghari; * November 1, 1952 in Ardestan ) was an Iranian politician and officer. He was deputy defense minister , general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and cabinet member of President Mohammad Chātami . According to unconfirmed reports, Asgari died in December 2010 in Ajalon prison in Ramla , Israel .

Life

Asgari was the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Lebanon in the 1980s . In the 1990s he was the head of the Iranian secret service VEVAK . He later became deputy defense minister in Iran. After the presidential election in 2005 and the replacement of Mohammad Chātami by Mahmoud Ahmadineschād , he had to give up this post. Allegedly he was last entrusted with Iranian actions in Iraq .

In early February 2007, Asgari disappeared while visiting Istanbul . While Iran spoke of a kidnapping, other sources claim that it was a defector and that it is cooperating with the American intelligence service CIA . There are suspicions that the change in the assessment of the dangerousness of Iran with regard to its nuclear program by the CIA is due, among other things, to his statements. Asgari has been described in the past by Israeli sources as a "gold mine for Western intelligence services".

The Israeli news website Ynet reported on December 27, 2010 the suicide of an unnamed security prisoner in an Israeli prison. On the same day, the American blogger Richard Silverstein expressed suspicion in his Middle East blog Tikun Olam that the dead man was Ali-Reza Asgari. Iranian news reports on December 28 and 29, 2010, partly citing Silverstein, that Asgari had died in Israeli custody under unexplained circumstances. However, the identity of the dead has not been confirmed by the Israeli side.

In 2014, in connection with the publication of a biography of CIA agent Robert Ames, Richard Silverstein wrote that in 2010 he had been given false information. The "Prisoner X" was the Australian Ben Zygier . It can be assumed that Ali-Reza Asgari is indeed a defector.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Iran pursuing fate of former defense ministry official missing in Turkey", IRNA, March 6, 2007 ( Memento of February 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ a b c Richard Silverstein: “Iranian General Murdered in Israel's Ayalon Prison?” Tikun Olam , December 27, 2010.
  3. ↑ a b “Former Deputy Defense Minister Dies in Israeli Jail.” ( Memento from January 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Iranian.com , December 28, 2010.
  4. ^ A b "Iran's Former Deputy Defense Minister Martyred in Israeli Prison." Tehran Times , December 29, 2010.
  5. ↑ "The Vanishing Iranian General: Did He Leave or Was He Taken?", DEBKAfile, March 2, 2007 ( Memento from March 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ "Disappeared in Turkey: Iran accuses the West of kidnapping ex-general" , Spiegel online , March 6, 2007.
  7. ↑ a b "Defector spied on Iran for years", The Sunday Times, March 11, 2007 ( Memento of March 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ Hans Rühle: How Iran pushed Syria's nuclear armament forward. Background to the Israeli action against the al-Kibar reactor. In: NZZ. March 19, 2009, archived from the original on March 22, 2009 ; Retrieved September 18, 2014 .
  9. ↑ "Iran Dossier: Scouting Attack on the Hardest Target in the World" , Spiegel Online , December 6, 2007.
  10. ↑ Kai Bird: The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames. New York: Crown Publishing, 2014. ISBN 978-0-307-88975-1
  11. ↑ Richard Silverstein, “Ali Reza Asgari Mystery Unfolds.” Tikun Olam , May 19, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Asgari, Ali-Reza
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Asghari, Alireza; علیرضا عسگری (Persian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian politician and officer
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Ardestan