'Abducted' Iran nuclear scientist 'heading home'

Tehran: Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who claimed he was abducted by CIA agents last year and taken to the US is on his way back to Tehran, Iran says. Foreign Ministry officials, who claim they have evidence Shahram Amiri was kidnapped, told state media he had now left the US. The US state department has insisted he was in the US of his own free will.In June, Mr Amiri appeared in three videos giving conflicting stories about how he had arrived in the US.He said in the first that he had been kidnapped by CIA and Saudi agents while on a pilgrimage.

In the second message he said he had gone to the US to improve his education and was living freely in Arizona.In the third, he claimed to have escaped from US custody.

On Monday evening Mr Amiri arrived at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington, which handles Iranian affairs in the US capital, and asked to be repatriated.

Since then, he has renewed his allegations that he was kidnapped, giving more details to the Iranian media.But in the US, unnamed officials and security sources are claiming that Mr Amiri defected and was put into a kind of witness-protection programme.

Later, he apparently became concerned for family members he had left behind, had a breakdown and decided to return to Iran, US reports claim.





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