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London (AFP): A former Iranian deputy defence minister who disappeared from Turkey last month had been spying on Iran for Western intelligence since 2003, a newspaper reported Sunday, citing Iranian sources. The Sunday Times said Ali Reza Asghari, who once commanded the Revolutionary Guards, was recruited by a foreign intelligence officer during an overseas business trip around four years ago.
“Ali Reza was a wealthy man before 2003,” an Iranian source was quoted by the newspaper as saying. “Since 2003, he has become a very wealthy man.
It said he defected via the Syrian capital Damascus at the beginning of last month in an escape arranged by Western intelligence agencies who feared his cover was about to be blown.
On February 7, four days after arriving in Damascus and receiving assurances his family was safe, he took a flight to Istanbul, the newspaper said. In Turkey, he received a new passport and left the country by car, it added.
Quoting unnamed Iranian sources, the newspaper said his defection took months to organise and that at least 10 members of his family, including his two sons, his daughter and several grandchildren, also fled Iran.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing a senior US official, that Ashgari left his country and is cooperating voluntarily with Western intelligence agencies.
It said he was providing information on the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran's links to the organisation, the unnamed official told the US newspaper. But he reportedly had no details about Iran's nuclear programme.
Asghari, a deputy defense minister under the previous government of reformist president Mohammad Khatami, disappeared after checking into a hotel in Istanbul on a private visit in February.
Iran's foreign minister said on Monday that Tehran had sent a team of diplomats to look into the case.
The official's disappearance, which has fueled intense speculation in Israeli and Turkish media that he may have defected, came as the United States accused Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq by allegedly arming Shiite militants.
It also comes as Iran defies a United Nations demand that it halt uranium enrichment, which the US and other major powers suspect Tehran is pursuing in the development of nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic insists its nuclear programme is for power generation.
