An Iranian nuclear scientist, whose disappearance in Saudi Arabia in 2009 and subsequent return to Tehran a year later from Washington was shrouded in mystery, has been executed in his home country...
The release of Clintons emails last year by the State Department appeared to have been damning for Amiri. A number of emails sent to the then secretary of state appeared to support claims that he was a defector. Our friend has to be given a way out. We should recognise his concerns and frame it in terms of a misunderstanding with no malevolent intent and that we will make sure there is no recurrence. Our person wont be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave, so be it, wrote one senior official to Clinton, according to CNN.
Following the reported revelations in the Clinton emails, Amiri was executed for spying, said Dina Esfandiary, MacArthur fellow at the centre for science and security studies at Kings College London. In the Iranian judiciarys mind, its a necessary signal to the US that Iran is aware of their activities in Iran and that this is what is done to those who help the enemy. Its a textbook spying case.
Iranian hardliners, who dominate the judiciary and the intelligence apparatus, have vociferously opposed the nuclear deal that Hassan Rouhani, the president, struck with the west last year. According to Esfandiary, Amiris execution could also play internally as Rouhani enters his final year in office. Its also another shot at the Rouhani camp amid intense political infighting a year after the Iran deal and months before the elections, she said.
