DATE=6/12/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=U-S - IRAN DEFECTOR (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-263404
BYLINE=DAVID SWAN
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=

VOICED AT: 

INTRO: U-S intelligence agencies have rejected the 
story told by an Iranian defector who said he ran 
terrorist operations for the Tehran government.  Among 
other things, the man said he could show Iran was 
behind the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over 
Lockerbie, Scotland.  V-O-A's David Swan reports.

TEXT: Investigators have questioned the man who calls 
himself Ahmad Behbahani -- and have decided he is an 
impostor.  The defector's real identity is apparently 
still unknown.  But sources say he could not back up 
his claim to have been a high-level Iranian 
intelligence official who directed overseas terrorism 
for more than a decade.

The man made those statements from a Turkish refugee 
camp, in an unrecorded interview with the C-B-S 
television program "60 Minutes."  He said he had 
documentation to prove Iran carried out the Pan Am 103 
attack in a joint operation with Libya 12 years ago.

The defector said Iran was also responsible for the 
deadly bombing of a U-S military housing complex in 
Saudi Arabia in 1996.  His charges brought immediate 
denials from Tehran and were met with skepticism by 
American and Turkish authorities.  Officials say he 
would have been just 20 years old at the time of the 
Lockerbie bombing, and at that age was an unlikely 
terrorist mastermind.

Had the defector's account been confirmed, it could 
have disrupted the trial of two Libyan men in the Pan 
Am case.  It could also have seriously set back the  
U-S effort to improve ties with Iran.(Signed)

Neb/ds/PW 



12-Jun-2000 16:28 PM EDT (12-Jun-2000 2028 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.