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Iran: Case Open on Former FBI Agent Levinson Missing There

Associated Press

   DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Iran is acknowledging for the first time
   that it has an open case before its Revolutionary Court concerning the
   2007 disappearance of a former FBI agent on an authorized CIA mission
   to the country, renewing questions over what happened to him.

   In a filing to the United Nations, Iran said the case over Robert
   Levinson was "on going," without elaborating.

   It wasn't immediately clear how long the case had been open, nor the
   circumstances by which it started. However, it comes amid a renewed
   push to find him with an offer of $20 million for information from the
   Trump administration amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.
   over Tehran's collapsing nuclear deal with world powers. That's in
   addition to $5 million earlier offered by the FBI.

   The Associated Press Saturday obtained the text of Iran's filing to the
   U.N.'s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

   Short statement

   "According to the last statement of Tehran's Justice Department, Mr.
   Robert Alan Levinson has an ongoing case in the Public Prosecution and
   Revolutionary Court of Tehran," the filing said.

   It did not elaborate. Iran's Revolutionary Court typically handles
   espionage cases and others involving smuggling, blasphemy and attempts
   to overthrow its Islamic government. Westerners and Iranian dual
   nationals with ties to the West often find themselves tried and
   convicted in closed-door trials in these courts, only later to be used
   as bargaining chips in negotiations.

   Iran's mission to the U.N. did not immediately respond to a request for
   comment and its state media has not acknowledged the case.

   The Washington Post first reported on the ongoing case.

   Missing since 2007

   Levinson disappeared from Iran's Kish Island on March 9, 2007. For
   years, U.S. officials would only say that Levinson, a meticulous FBI
   investigator credited with busting Russian and Italian mobsters, was
   working for a private firm on his trip.

   In December 2013, the AP revealed Levinson in fact had been on a
   mission for CIA analysts who had no authority to run spy operations.
   Levinson's family had received a $2.5 million annuity from the CIA in
   order to stop a lawsuit revealing details of his work, while the agency
   forced out three veteran analysts and disciplined seven others.

   Since his disappearance, the only photos and video of Levinson emerged
   in 2010 and 2011. He appeared gaunt and bearded with long hair, and was
   wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those worn by detainees at the
   U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

   The video, with a Pashtun wedding song popular in Afghanistan playing
   in the background, showed Levinson complaining of poor health.

   Rumors about him have circulated for years, with one account claiming
   he was locked up in a Tehran prison run by Iran's paramilitary
   Revolutionary Guard and U.S. officials suggesting he may not be in Iran
   at all. Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive living in Iran who is
   wanted for the assassination of a former Iranian diplomat in Maryland
   in 1980, is the last known person to have seen Levinson before his
   disappearance. Iran has offered a series of contradictory statements
   about Levinson in the time since. It asked the U.N. group to close its
   investigation into Levinson in February, saying "no proof has been
   presented by the claimant in this case to prove the presence of the
   aforesaid in Iran's detention centers."