Missing American - FBI offers $1 million USD reward
The FBI has offered a $1 million reward for information about the well-being and whereabouts of Bob Levinson. Follow this link for details about the FBI’s reward offer.
Florida’s WSVN-TV reports that, although still missing, Bob Levinson is still in the thoughts of his family, who still hope for his speedy and safe return. As do we. Bobby, there are still a lot of people thinking about you every day.
Excerpted from Son of missing man looks in stands for father
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (WSVN) — A South Florida teen hoping to win his high school volleyball championship is also holding out hope that he will see his father again someday soon. In 2007, retired FBI agent Bob Levinson vanished while on a private business trip to Iran. In 2010, three years after his disappearance, a YouTube video emerged, showing Bob Levinson as he pleaded for help to get back home. He is still missing. Levinson’s son Doug was only 13 when his father went missing. Thursday night, Coral Glades High played against Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High in the district volleyball finals. The now 18-year-old Coral Glades High School senior admits he still looks into the stands, hoping to see his father cheering him on. “He would just be happy that I played this long and played the sport I love,” said Doug. “Sometimes, if I hit a good ball or hit a kill, I look up and that’s it. But my mind’s gotta be on the court. It’s in the back of your head, but you’ve just got to push it out.” “He used to be in the stands for every one of our children’s games,” said Bob’s wife, Christine Levinson, “and he’s not able to be here.” Last year, Doug and his sister received college scholarships, and Doug will attend Florida State University in the fall. Levinson’s family believes he is still alive and being held against his will.
We missed this when it appeared on the Christian Science Monitor website in March. From Former FBI Agent Robert Levinson still missing in Iran, dated 9 March 2010.
The US State Department marked the third anniversary of the disappearance of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent turned private investigator, from Kish Island in Iran by appealing to the authorities in Tehran to cooperate with the efforts of the US and his wife, Christine, to locate him.
“In December 2007, Mrs. Levinson first met with Iranian officials who expressed a willingness to share information about their investigation into her husband’s disappearance with the family,” the State Department said in a press release. “We ask that Iran stand behind its commitment to provide full details about their authorities’ investigation.”
The State Department also marked the anniversary by calling on “Iran to resolve the cases of the five American citizens who are unjustly detained in Iran:Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, Kian Tajbakhsh, and Reza Taghavi.”
Mr. Levinson, who served 27 years as an FBI agent and also worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration, disappeared from Kish Island, a free trade zone and smuggling center where Iran’s typically strict visa requirements are not enforced, while investigating a cigarette smuggling ring for a private client. He has seven children and two grandchildren.
The US has said in the past that despite promises of full cooperation from Iran that it believes the country has information about Levinson’s disappearance that it isn’t sharing.
“Over the past three years, my family has desperately has desperately reached out to you as much as possible,” his daughter, Sarah, wrote in an open letter to the US and Iranian governments on a website the family maintains about Levinson’s disappearance. “Unfortunately, none of our messages have brought us any closer to finding our father and bringing him home.”
The family in the past has said Levinson expected to spend only a day on Kish Island. Shortly after his disappearance, Iran’s state-run Press TV carried an article that said Levinson had been taken into Iranian custody on March 9, 2007, and predicted he would be freed within a “matter of days.”
In a statement on the family website this past December, Mrs. Levinson said she and her relatives “respectfully ask for clarification” about the Press TV article and called for Iranian government help in securing his return home as a “humanitarian gesture.”
In 2007, the Financial Times quoted Dawud Salahuddin – a man wanted by the FBI and connected to Press TV – as saying he’d shared a hotel room with Levinson on March 8. Mr. Salahuddin said he was detained by Iranian authorities himself that day and upon his release the next day Levinson was gone. “I don’t think he is missing, but don’t want to point my finger at anyone,” he said. “Some people know exactly where he is … he came only to see me.”
In September 2009, the Times of London reported that Salahuddin had worked for three years as a senior editor at Press TV under the alias Hassan Abdulrahman. The paper also said that he was an African-American who was originally called David Belfield before converting to Islam in 1969 and changing his name to Dawud Salahuddin.
Abdulrahman, as he’s now called, is wanted by the FBI for the murder of Ali Akbar Tabatabai, a former aide to the Shah who was murdered at his home in Maryland in 1980. The paper, which said it reached Abdulrahman by telephone at his home in Iran, said he admitted to the murder and showed no remorse. “I don’t regret that, no,” he said.
From A Time To Betray, a blog written by an Iranian, Reza Kahlili (a pseudonym), an Iranian now living in the United States who was for a time a CIA contract agent.
The US State Department on Tuesday reiterated its call for Iran to help locate Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing on an island in the Gulf three years ago.
“Mr. Levinson will remain a priority for the United States until he is reunited with his family,” State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said, reading a statement on the anniversary of his disappearance.
When President Obama ordered the release of five Quds force commanders captured by U.S. armed forces in Irbil, Iraq in 2007 despite the fact that the very commanders and their organization had successfully orchestrated the killing of hundreds of our soldiers in Iraq, he believed that by showing good faith to the terrorists ruling Iran, he will become the first U.S. President to break the ice in U.S.-Iran relations. However President Obama failed to realize that several U.S. Presidents before him had tried in vain to appease the Iranian rulers only to find out their own failure. Iran answered Obama’s good gestures by taking hostage three American hikers, now imprisoned in Iran. Can anyone remember the hostage takings in Beirut and the Iran-Contra affair or our politicians have a short memory span.
Terrorists and hostage takers are just that and when one succumbs to their demands, they will simply continue with the same behavior. Isn’t it time to confront such thugs so that the future hostage takers would know what will be in store for them if they continued with such behavior?
Robert Levinson went missing in Iranian island of Kish in 2007. The Iranian government has denied any knowledge as to his existence!
When will we learn to deal differently with hostage takers? on A Time To Betray.
As some readers of Popular Logistics
are aware, Bob Levinson is a dear friend of mine, and is sorely missed. I want him back with his family in good health immediately. He also owes me at least one dinner, and I intend to collect. But I make no pretense of detachment or neutrality; Mr. Kahlili’s argument may or may not describe the best approach, but certainly deserves some thought.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Laura Rozen reports on Politico.com:
In what was being reported as a potentially significant shift, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranian State Television today that Iran is ready to send its uranium abroad.
“We have no problem sending our enriched uranium abroad,” Ahmadinejad told state television, according to Reuters.
“We say: we will give you our 3.5 percent enriched uranium and will get the fuel. It may take 4 to 5 months until we get the fuel,” he said. “If we send our enriched uranium abroad and then they do not give us the 20 percent enriched fuel for our reactor, we are capable of producing it inside Iran.”
The U.S. reacted cautiously to the interview, saying it was willing to listen if Iran has genuinely changed its position on the fuel swap deal, while indicating it was continuing preparations with key allies on sanctions for further pressuring Iran. Iran has previously publicly said it was willing to send its low enriched uranium abroad, but it had balked at sending it out all in one batch, as a proposal worked out by the UN atomic energy agency last fall had stipulated. U.S. officials said it remained to be seen if Iran had changed its position on that.
According to United Press International:
Christine Levinson (L), wife of an ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson who disappeared in Iran in March 2007, her son Daniel (C), and her sister Susan are seen after arriving at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran, Iran on December 18, 2007. Robert Levinson went missing while on a business trip to Iran’s southern island of Kish and the Iranian government claims they have no information on his whereabouts.
Wife of missing ex-FBI agent arrives in Iran
UPI photo dated December 18th, 2009:
Photo by United Press International dated 18 December 2009
U.S. steps up pressure on Iran over missing ex-FBI agent, by Lesley Clark of the McClatchy Newspapers:
WASHINGTON — The White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton upped the pressure Thursday on Iran to divulge any information it has about Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent who went missing from a Persian Gulf island in March 2007.
The statement from the White House came as the Coral Springs, Fla., man’s family marked the 1,000th day of his disappearance with meetings at the State Department and the FBI. National Security Adviser James Jones also met with the family “to reassure them that Bob’s case remains a priority for the United States,” the White House said.
The FBI and the State Department called for cooperation, with the FBI — the lead agency that investigates the disappearances of Americans overseas — saying that it has “not received any information from Iranian authorities to date.”
Clinton echoed Gibbs’ remarks and said that although Iranian authorities had promised the family that they’d share information about the investigation, “that promise has yet to be fulfilled.”
Further:
Family of missing former FBI agent marks 1,000th day of his disappearance
U.S. calls on Iran to help find missing Broward man
We feign no neutrality in this matter: the Administration’s efforts are appreciated, and Bob Levinson is my dear friend, generous colleague, mentor, and as good a person as I have ever known. We urge the Administration to continue to pursue the matter, and Iranian government to do the right thing, and take whatever steps are necessary to locate him and return him to his family and friends.
NB:
For more information – see HelpBobLevinson.com
Thanks to Greta Van Susteren, her producers and Fox News – for keeping the case of Bob Levinson in the public forum. From Missing Former FBI Agent’s Wife Seeks Answers From Ahmadinejad, an interview conducted on 22 September on the Fox show “On the Record.” This is from a draft transcript.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: A former FBI agent travels to Iran and now he is missing. His wife is in New York tonight and she wants a face-to-face meeting with the Iranian president.
This is a case we have followed closely here at “On the Record.” Here is what weigh know. Robert Levinson vanished in March of ’07 during a trip to the Iranian island of Kish. Since then there has been no sign of him. Levinson is simply gone.
Is he being held prisoner in Iran? The missing man’s wife Christine Levinson wants answers. Christine joins us live. Good evening, Christine, and I take it there is no information update since the last time you and I spoke, right?
CHRISTINE LEVINSON, WIFE OF MISSING BOB LEVINSON: No, there isn’t. Thank you for having me on tonight.
VAN SUSTEREN: Christine, I know you want to talk to the president of Iran. Has there been any indication that he is willing to do that since he is now in the United States? I know you have traveled as well to Iran, but is there any indication that he will talk to you within the next 48 hours?
LEVINSON: I have no information that he will talk to me. I am hoping that that will happen. This is the third year in a row that I have come here to New York in hopes of meeting with him.
VAN SUSTEREN:
All right. He is on American soil, but, of course, he is there as part of the U.N., so he is protected by that fact.
But has the United States government said to you, Christine, your husband is an American. He is a former FBI agent as well. We really want to help you out. As long as he is in New York, we are going to ask him — we are going to try to help you out getting to this president to help you get answers.
LEVINSON: I hope so. I have not received any information that a meeting will take place. But I’m hopeful that at any given time anyone who can will bring up my husband’s case.
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you feel — and I suspect this just from watching from afar, that basically you just got the giant runaround.
LEVINSON: A runaround — I don’t know. Right now I just don’t have any information about whether this meeting is going to happen. I’m still hopeful, and I have been promised that if it will happen they will let me know.
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you believe that someone in authority in Iran knows where your husband is or what’s happened to him?
LEVINSON: I believe someone in Iran knows what happened to him. Who that is, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about where he is today. I know no more than I did when he disappeared on March 9, 2007. And I’m hoping that someone hearing this story tonight will be able to help me find him and bring him home.
VAN SUSTEREN: I take it all you want is information about your husband. You don’t want to cause any problems. You don’t want any trouble between the countries. You just want to know where your husband is, right?
LEVINSON: Right. Bob and I have been married 35 years. I’m just a housewife looking for my husband so that he can come home and bounce his grandchildren on his knee.
VAN SUSTEREN: So you would be delighted if anyone just sort of slipped you some information, you know, and you go quietly off in pursuit of the information to see whether he is still living or whether he might be in trouble, in jeopardy, or something might have happened to him?
LEVINSON: Yes, anything. I would just like information about my husband. And anyone who needs to can get in touch with me on our Web site.
VAN SUSTEREN: What’s the Web site?
LEVINSON: www.helpboblevinson.com.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. When were you last in Iran?
LEVINSON: I was in Iran in December 2007. And at that time they promised that they would give me a report on what they had found when they investigated the case. And I have not heard anything.
I hired an Iranian lawyer while I was over there, Mr. Agazi (ph), and he has tried through the legal system to try to get information and has not.
VAN SUSTEREN: It is deeply distressing, Christine, because we have followed this story and others have as well, because, you know, to the rest of us, you know, sort of watching from the side, all it is a family who just wants information about a loved one.
And why you can’t have it — I don’t know if you are caught up in the two countries or whatever it is, but it is deeply disturbing. I hope this time Christine something good happens for you. Good luck.
LEVINSON: Thank you, Greta.
VAN SUSTEREN: Thank you.
Disclosure: Bob Levinson is my dear friend and former colleague. We would think the matter newsworthy in any case, but make no bones about our biases in the case: we want Levinson returned immediately, and are skeptical about the Iranian government’s protestations of ignorance in the matter.
Secretary of State Clinton renews US call for Iran to release Americans detained, missing
US renews calls on Iran to release Americans
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is pressing Iran to release Americans who are detained or have gone missing there.
Retired FBI agent Robert Levinson has been missing since March 2007. Three hikers — Joshua Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd — were detained by Iranian authorities on July 31. And an Iranian-American scholar, Kian Tajbakhsh, was arrested last month on charges related to provoking unrest.
Clinton’s statement Saturday comes days after a U.S. graduate student held in Iran returned to Los Angeles.
BY PERRY STEIN
pstein@MiamiHerald.com
The family of an American kidnapped in Mexico has teamed up with U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Sen. Bill Nelson with the hopes of bringing their relative back home safely to Miami.
Felix Batista, 53, went missing from a restaurant in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila about six months ago. Ironically, Batista specializes in resolving kidnapping cases and was in Mexico to speak to businessmen about avoiding abductions.
No ransom demand has been made and there has been no word of his whereabouts since his disappearance last December.
On Friday morning, Nelson and Ros-Lehtinen met with Batista’s family in Coral Gables to discuss the government’s efforts to solve the mysterious disappearance.
Nelson further stressed the importance of the government working to resolve this disappearance, and drew comparisons between this incident and the case of Robert Levinson — a retired FBI agent from Coral Springs who went missing in 2007 while researching a cigarette-smuggling case in Iran.
Batista is a constituent in Ros-Lehtinen’s 18th congressional district.
”This is such a sad case and that is why I have asked other members of the Florida congressional delegation to get involved,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.
“We need to seek answers for the family and I am pleased that my colleague, Sen. Nelson, has joined this endeavor.”
Nelson said that he spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Batista and that the Obama administration is making it a priority.
”I personally spoke to Secretary of State Clinton about two weeks ago. I know she is using all the resources of the State Department, and next week I will be meeting with the attorney general to ask him to continue to have the FBI, and the other resources at his control, working the case,” Nelson told The Miami Herald.
In a letter to President Barack Obama, Ros-Lehtinen urged Obama to seriously consider this matter because “Mr. Batista’s case tragically demonstrates the irrefutable threat that Mexico’s escalating narco-violence poses to the security of our own nation and citizens.”
ANOTHER CASE
Nelson further stressed the importance of the government working to resolve this disappearance, and drew comparisons between this incident and the case of Robert Levinson — a retired FBI agent from Coral Springs who went missing in 2007 while researching a cigarette-smuggling case in Iran.
via Politicians help family of man kidnapped in Mexico – Miami-Dade – MiamiHerald.com.
Got this [link to post] via the blog of Bill Warner, a private investigator based in Sarasota. Apparently Senator Bill Nelson (there’s also a Ben Nelson, from Nebraska, of Florida, asked Secretary Clinton about the Levinson case during her confirmation hearings, and said that he believed Levinson was being held in a secret prison in Iran. Whatever the basis for this information, no one in government had seen fit to share it with Bobby’s wife, Christine.
Here’s the Fox News reporting. While I’m not normally a big fan of Fox, on this story they deserve credit for not forgetting about Bobby Levinson.
Likewise Senator Nelson and Bill Warner.
Further references:
Bill Warner’s blog here – and his investigative business here.
Senator Nelson’s campaign site here; and his official site here.
We plan to make a donation and send him a letter of thanks and encouragement; we urge our readers to do the same.
From HelpBobLevinson.com :
On Sunday, March 9, 2008, the Levinson Family will be holding the Help Bob Levinson Rally of Hope in Coral Springs, Florida.
We hope that you, our family and friends, will join us in showing love and support for Bob on the one year anniversary of his disappearance and the eve of his 60th Birthday.
We’ll try to provide further information shortly.
UPDATE, 11/27/07: we’ve determined – much to our embarassment – that we were suckered by trackback spam into concluding this was a new report. In fact, it linked, eventually, to a May 2007 post on abcnews.com
This is one of the more insidious permutations of spam – polluting the stream of information about critical issues. Our apologies to our readers. Eds.
The Janine Swainston blog has a report dated November 21, 2007 (two days ago) headed
The entire text of the blog post is:
Friends of the former FBI agent believed to be in custody in Iran, Robert Levinson, say he could be released as early as today based on what they describe as two unconfirmed reports from Tehran. “We have received a call that he is free, and we have people at airports in Frankfurt and Dubai where we have been told he could show up,” one of. . .
The “more” link leads to an ABC News post dated May 1, 2007.
There’s no direct contact information on this blog – but we’re trying to run down this report – which, if true, would be the best Thanksgiving ever for a bunch of my favorite people – not least Bobby Levinson. (If this post finds its way to Mr. Levinson – he should be reminded that he owes me at least one dinner).
RFERL reports that Christine Levinson is awaiting a response to her application for a visa to travel to Iran to search for her husband, Bobby Levinson, who has been missing since March 8, last seen on the Iranian island Kish.
The wife of a former FBI agent who disappeared in March while on a business trip to Iran told Radio Farda today that she has traveled to New York to try to meet with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who is expected to speak at the UN General Assembly. Christine Levinson told Radio Farda that she has not been able yet to get an appointment with the Iranian president.
[photo of Robert Levinson via RadioFarda.com
, credited “public domain’]
“I keep trying to get an appointment, I know he’s a very busy man but I hope he will be able to find even 10 minutes to see me,” she said. “I want to ask him for his help in finding my husband, I know that he has the ability to find him.”Robert Levinson was last seen on March 8 on Kish Island off the southern coast of Iran, where according to his family he had gone to seek information on cigarette smuggling.
His wife told Radio Farda that she has applied for an Iranian visa to travel to Iran and seek information on her missing husband. She said Iranian authorities are reviewing her visa request.
Craig Crawford‘s post in Congressional Quarterly Politics places Bobby Levinson’s disappearance squarely in the middle of the Persian Gulf chessboard:
Now that George W. Bush seems to be around the corner on Capitol Hill to keep control of the Iraq War, he can move on to his other military target: Iran.
And while Congress dithers about Iraq, developments on the Iranian front are playing into the president’s hands. Europeans, especially the Germans, are stepping back from sanctions against Iran that might delay or prevent a U.S. bombing campaign. The British are once again playing ball by agreeing to a U.S. request to move troops to the Iraq-Iran border. And Iran is conveniently heightening tensions by ignoring State Department requests for information about an American, former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in March.
[emphasis supplied]
All this comes at a time when Democratic leaders in Congress show no interest in legislation that would tie Bush’s hands if he wants to make a move on Iran — which he will probably do before the year is out.
“Craig Crawford’s Trail Mix: With Iraq Policy Intact, Bush Free to Target Iran.”
