Iran Executes Shahram Amiri After Clinton Email Leak-Reported as Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Donald Trump claim Hillary Clinton’s “reckless” use of a private email server included references to a nuclear scientist named Shahram Amiri who was later executed.
The Truth:
Shahram Amiri was hanged for treason for giving “vital information to the enemy” — but we couldn’t find a clear connection between Clinton’s emails and Amiri’s execution.
Amiri went missing in 2009 after he traveled to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on a pilgrimage. He reappeared about a year later in a series of videos posted on YouTube. In the first video, Amiri said:
“I was abducted on the 13th of Khordad 1388 (June 3, 2009) in a joint operation by terror and kidnap teams from the US intelligence service CIA and Saudi Arabia’s Istikhbarat [intelligence agency]. I was kidnapped from the holy city of Medina.”
In a second vido, Amiri said he was in the United States on his own free will to study. In a third video, Amiri said that he had escaped from “U.S. Intelligence officers in Virginia” and that he was in “danger and could possibly be arrested again” by them.
The Hill reports that U.S. officials confirmed at the time that Amiri had provided “useful information” to them.
Then, in July 2010, Amiri showed up at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., and asked to be returned home to Iran, McClatchy reports:
Amiri was “dropped off” at the Iranian interests section of the Pakistan embassy in Washington at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Abdul Basit, the spokesman for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad, told McClatchy.
Because Iran and the United States do not have diplomatic relations, Pakistan handles Iranian interests in the U.S.
“He was dropped there by someone,” said Basit. “He’s in the Iranian interests section, not in the Pakistan embassy per se. They are making arrangements to repatriate him.”
The Iranian interests section is located in a separate building, some two to three miles from the Pakistan embassy, said Basit, and it is staffed by around eight Iranians. He said he did not know how Amiri got there or how he would be sent back to Iran.
Separately, Iran’s state radio reported Tuesday that “Shahram Amiri took refuge at Iran’s interest section at the Pakistan embassy in Washington, wanting to return to Iran immediately.”
Amiri, a university researcher who works for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, could have valuable information on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program. According to some reports, Amiri had defected to the U.S. and was helping the CIA.
Shortly before Amiri showed up at the Pakistani Embassy, Iranian TV released Amiri’s videos and described as a nuclear scientist who had defected to the United States — which means that Iran was well aware of Amiri and his contacts with the CIA without any help from Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
After that, reports of Amiri’s whereabouts quieted until August 2016. That’s when Iran’s Justice Ministry announced that he had been executed:
Mohseni Ejei told reporters that Amiri had access to top secret information about the Islamic Republic of Iran and got linked to Iran’s number one enemy, the United States.
Amiri had provided the enemy with vital information about Iran, the judiciary spokesman said.
One of the cases in which Iran overpowered the US intelligence agency was the case of Shahram Amiri, Mohseni Ejei said, adding, ‘CIA thought that its movements were kept away from the eye of Iranian Intelligence Ministry.’
‘They took Amiri to Saudi Arabia, thinking that we are not aware of,’ he said, adding that Iran was closely monitoring the plot.
Noting that Amiri stood trial several times in presence of his defense lawyer, he said that Amiri appealed to the court of justice against the primary verdict which was death sentence.
His appeal was lodged with the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court once again reviewed the charge brought against the defendant because the spies are in some cases sentenced to death and in other cases are subject to ten years in prison, Mohseni-Ejei said.
Mohseni-Ejei said that family of the defentant believed that the verdict was 10 years in prison, but, he had received death penalty in the primary verdict and after the legal proceedings his verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court and he was finally put to death, Mohseni Ejei said.
Following reports of Amiri’s death, Trump took to Twitter to link Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state to his death
However, we haven’t found anything linking Amiri’s execution to Clinton’s use of a private email server. And, for what it’s worth, the State Department said that none of the Clinton emails about Amiri were classified, and that “This is not something that became public when the State Department released those emails.”
In deed, it would appear that Iran was aware of Amiri’s contact with the U.S. as far back as 2010. Also, as the statement from Iran said, Amiri stood trial several times for treason, and that he had appealed his conviction, before the death sentence was carried out. So, the timeline of the legal system doesn’t jive with the idea that he was executed after Iranians saw his name in Clinton’s released emails.
Given all that, we’re reporting the claim that Amiri was executed because of Clinton’s use of a private email server, or hacked emails, as fiction.