The Iranian government has executed a nuclear scientist who was believed to have cooperated with U.S. intelligence but who returned to Iran after claiming he had been abducted and tortured by the CIA.

The tale of Shahram Amiri was one of the stranger sagas to emerge from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, testing her diplomatic skills in highly sensitive circumstances. His death comes just over a year after Iran and the U.S. struck a deal aimed at reining in Iran's nuclear program, an agreement Clinton was instrumental in launching.

State-controlled Iranian media on Sunday confirmed Amiri's execution, quoting an Iranian judiciary spokesman as saying that Amiri "provided the enemy with vital information of the country." His family told the BBC his body had rope marks, indicating he had been hanged, apparently in the past week.

Amiri went missing in Saudi Arabia in May or June 2009 while on religious pilgrimage to Mecca. In the following months, Iranian officials accused the U.S. of abducting him. The State Department claimed for months that it "had no information" on Amiri.

The Iranian resurfaced publicly on June 7, 2010, in a pair of Internet videos. In one, he claimed he'd been kidnapped by the CIA during his pilgrimage and was being held in Tucson, Arizona, where he had been subject to torture and psychological pressure. In the other, he claimed he was in the U.S. to further his education and was free and safe.

Amiri appeared in a third video, posted June 29, 2010, in which he said he'd escaped U.S. custody and had reached Virginia. Two weeks later, Amiri walked into the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., which houses an Iranian interests section, and said he wanted to return to Iran.

Clinton confirmed at that point, during a news conference, that Amiri had been present in the U.S., saying he arrived “of his own free will and he is free to go. These are decisions that are his alone to make.”

When he did land in his native country on July 15, 2010, he was given a hero’s welcome, and Iranian officials cast him as a double agent, claiming he had infiltrated U.S. intelligence and that Iran had the upper hand in an intelligence war. But soon after returning home, Amiri was taken into custody, presumably imprisoned because of his dalliance with the U.S.

The CIA and the State Department declined to comment for this story, and the White House said it had no immediate comment. But the U.S. was clearly embarrassed over the drama as it played out six years ago, not to mention unhappy about the public window it offered into the high-stakes spy battles between Washington and Tehran over the latter's nuclear program.

American officials at the time quickly went about trying to debunk Amiri's allegations, scoffing at claims that they had kidnapped and held Amiri against his will. (It was never quite clear how Amiri managed to record the videos, still available on YouTube, if he was being held a prisoner of the U.S.)

The U.S. officials told American news organizations that Amiri had provided intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program for years from inside Iran, and that although he was not a major player in the country's nuclear apparatus, his information still proved useful. They said he had been paid some $5 million for the information he provided.
In this July 15, 2010 photo, Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist speaks with journalists at the Imam Khomeini airport, just outside Tehran, Iran, after returning to his homeland from the United States.

Shahram Amiri claimed to have been kidnapped by the CIA. | AP Photo

As Amiri made his way across the U.S. to the Pakistani Embassy, Clinton's advisers fretted over how to react.

In an email published among the trove of messages originally on Clinton's private server, top Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan (who now has a top role in her presidential campaign) expressed concern about how Amiri’s story would play in the media.

“The gentleman you have talked to [top State Department official] Bill Burns about has apparently gone to his country's interests section because he is unhappy with how much time it has taken to facilitate his departure,” Sullivan wrote. “This could lead to problematic news stories in the next 24 hours. Will keep you posted."

Another email, written by energy envoy Richard Morningstar and sent days earlier, portrayed Amiri as having psychological problems.

"Per the subject we discussed, we have a diplomatic, 'psychological' issue, not a legal issue," Morningstar wrote. "Our friend has to be given a way out. We should recognize 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 won't be able to do anything anyway. If he has to leave, so be it."

At the time, there were some reports that Amiri, who was born in 1977, was worried about what would happen to his family, especially his young son, whom he had left behind in Iran and who clearly were under the pressure of watchful Iranian authorities.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/iran-executes-nuclear-scientist-who-spied-for-us-226763

: Hillary Clinton recklessly discussed, in emails hosted on her
: private server, an Iranian nuclear scientist who was
: executed by Iran for treason, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said
: Sunday.

: "I'm not going to comment on what he may or may not have
: done for the United States government, but in the emails
: that were on Hillary Clinton's private server, there were
: conversations among her senior advisors about this
: gentleman," he said on "Face the Nation."
: Cotton was speaking about Shahram Amiri, who gave
: information to the U.S. about Iran's nuclear program.

: The senator said this lapse proves she is not capable of
: keeping the country safe.

: "That goes to show just how reckless and careless her
: decision was to put that kind of highly classified
: information on a private server. And I think her judgment
: is not suited to keep this country safe," he said.

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: and national security issues in your Inbox each weekday
: morning from veteran journalists Jamie McIntyre and
: Jacqueline Klimas.

: The revelation could cause further political damage to
: Clinton, who was already on the defensive Sunday after
: commenting oddly last week that she had
: "short-circuited" in a statement related to her
: honesty about the email scandal.

: Republican nominee Donald Trump seized on the statement to
: question her mental stability.

: Iran confirmed on Sunday that Amiri had been hanged for
: treason. He was convicted of spying charges in a death
: sentence case that was upheld on appeal, according to the
: Associated Press.

: "This person who had access to the country's secret and
: classified information had been linked to our hostile and
: No. 1 enemy, America, the Great Satan" a spokesman for
: the Iranian judiciary said. "He provided the enemy
: with vital and secret information of the country."

: His body was returned to his mother with rope marks around the
: neck.
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: By Jacqueline Klimas
: •
: 08/07/16 12:08 PM

: It would appear possible that discussion on an unclassified —
: and quite possibly hacked — email system about a person who
: was hanged as a spy will have a chilling effect on others
: who might want to engage in espionage for the United
: States.

: Amiri disappeared while on a religious pilgrimage to Saudi
: Arabia in 2009, but he then resurfaced a year later in the
: U.S., where he visited the Iranian interest section of the
: Pakistani embassy and demanded to be sent home to Iran.
: While Amiri told reporters that he was held against his
: will by both the Saudis and the Americans, U.S. officials
: said he was receiving millions of dollars for information
: he provided about Iran's nuclear program.

: The scientist shows up in Clinton's emails back in 2010, just
: nine days before he returned to Iran.

: "We have a diplomatic, 'psychological' issue, not a legal
: one. Our friend has to be given a way out," the email
: by Richard Morningstar, a former State Department special
: envoy for Eurasian energy, read, according to the
: Associated Press. "Our person won't be able to do
: anything anyway. If he has to leave so be it."

: Cotton Sunday also accused the Obama administration of
: "working like a gun cartel" by sending $400
: million to Iran in what many regard as ransom for hostages.

:
: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/cotton-clinton-discussed-executed-iranian-scientist-on-email/article/2598807