WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have proof that missing ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished while visiting an island off Iran in March 2007, is still alive, the Associated Press reported.
A U.S. official told ticklethewire.com that Levinson is not in Iran, but declined to divulge more details.
AP reported that the proof has “intensified secret negotiations to bring him home.” AP did not disclose more details and the FBI did not immediately return a call for comment.
Iran repeatedly said it had no information on his whereabouts even though U.S. officials suspected he had been abducted by the Iranian government.
Last month, Iran’s elite military force, the Revolutionary Guards, denied a report generated by WikiLeaks documents that suggested it was holding, or had held, Levinson.
“We deny the arrest of the FBI agent and if the Guards had arrested an enemy, it would announce itself,” the head of the Guards, commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, told reporters, according to ILNA news agency.
A WikiLeaks cable suggested that missing ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in 2007 while working as a private investigator in the Persian Gulf, was being held — at least at one point — in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s prison, according to a report in the The Telegraph in London.
One prevailing thought all along was that the 63 year old, who wasn’t in the best of health — high blood pressure and diabetes — might have died.
Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman said: “It remains an ongoing investigation and our goal remains to bring him home safely.”
