Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent and private investigator who disappeared from an Iranian island in 2007, is believed to have died in Iranian custody, his family revealed in a statement Wednesday.
The statement said U.S. officials agreed with the family’s conclusion, adding: “We don’t know when or how he died, only that it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Levinson was the longest-held hostage in U.S. history, and his family had fought for over a decade for his safe return, blaming the Iranian regime for his capture and imprisonment.
Levinson was 58 when he traveled to Kish Island, Iran, in 2007 working as a private investigator. He reportedly was taking part in an unauthorized CIA mission.
Upon his arrival, Levinson was said to have met with an American fugitive — Dawud Salahuddin — targeted by the CIA for recruitment, a source close to the Levinson case told Fox News in 2016.
Salahuddin was wanted by the CIA for allegedly murdering an Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980, and Levinson hoped the mission to deliver him to the agency would secure him full-time employment with the CIA, the source told Fox News at the time.
Shortly afterward, Levinson disappeared, but Iran repeatedly denied capturing him or knowing of his whereabouts.
“It has been 13 years waiting for answers. Thirteen years since we last saw him or had any contact with him,” Levinson’s family wrote in a Facebook post. “How those responsible in Iran could do this to a human being, while repeatedly lying to the world all this time, is incomprehensible to us. They kidnapped a foreign citizen and denied him any basic human rights, and his blood is on their hands.”
The post continued, “Bob Levinson should have spent his last moments surrounded by his family and all the love we feel for him. Instead, he died alone, in captivity thousands of miles away, in unbelievable suffering. His body has not yet been returned to us for a proper burial. We don’t even know when, or even if, his body would be returned to us. This is the very definition of cruelty.” READ MORE:
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