WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration for the first time on Monday formally blamed Iran for the presumed death of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, publicly identifying two Iranian intelligence officers believed responsible for his abduction.
Levinson disappeared in Iran under mysterious circumstances more than a decade ago, and though U.S. diplomats and investigators have long said they thought he was taken by Iranian government agents, Monday’s announcement in the final weeks of the Trump administration was the most definitive assignment of blame to date.
Besides blaming two high-ranking intelligence officers by name, U.S. officials said the Iranian regime sanctioned the plot that led to Levinson’s abduction and lied for years about its involvement in his disappearance through disinformation campaigns aimed at covering up the government’s role.
The announcement comes nine months after U.S. officials revealed that they had concluded that Levinson “may have passed some time ago” though they did not disclose at the time the information that led them to that assessment.
Officials on Monday would not describe any additional information that led them to believe Levinson had died in captivity, except to say that all evidence they had pointed in that direction, or how they came to identify the role of the two individual intelligence officers.