Topic: Shahram Amiri

Shahram Amiri is an Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared during an apparent umrah pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia in either May or June 2009.

The Iranian government accused the US government of kidnapping him, while reports by ABC News and Haaretz newspaper suggested Amiri "wanted to seek asylum abroad." On 13 July 2010, the BBC reported that Shahram Amiri had appeared and taken refuge in the Iran interests section of the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington DC, seeking help to reach Tehran. American sources confirmed he arrived in, or was taken to, the United States with the help of the CIA.

The Guardian reported that "he was an expert on radioactive isotopes for medical uses at Malek-Ashtar University of Technology (MUT), in Tehran," and reports in Iran said he "was also an employee of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation". Press TV reported that he worked at Malek Ashtar University, but the Iranian government would not confirm that he was a nuclear scientist. A later report by ABC News described him as a "researcher at Malek Ashtar University of Defense Technology," which according to the European Union Council, was “linked” to Iran’s Ministry of Defense and “set up a missiles training course in 2003.” The university's rector is a lieutenant general in the Iranian military who was "named in the UN Security Council’s first round of sanctions on Iran in 2006 as one of seven `persons involved in the nuclear program`.”