Spies smuggle Iranian defector here on dinghy
BRITISH spies used the Channel migrant crisis as cover to smuggle a defecting Iranian nuclear scientist to safety, sources claim.
The 47-year-old nuclear technician, with information about Iran’s nuclear programme, was brought to the UK on New Year’s Eve in a joint operation involving MI6, the CIA and Mossad.
It involved a 3,000-mile dash across Europe and a final 22-mile dinghy crossing across the Channel hidden among illegal Iranian immigrants.
An Israeli asset for years, he is said to have helped plan the 2012 assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a nuclear scientist and director at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
The 32-year-old was killed by a magnetic bomb attached to his car in Tehran. His driver also died.
Plans to smuggle the technician out of Iran were hatched in October when he feared he would be found out.
The CIA and MI6 wanted to talk to the technician after he was rescued to learn more about Iran’s nuclear programme. In December Mossad got him out, and after their debrief it fell to MI6 to spirit him across Europe, into the UK and on to the US.
But MI6 had a problem as America has dropped the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA or Iran nuclear deal. Britain still supports it, so intelligence chiefs did not want to be seen to be helping him get to England. A source said: “This wasn’t without its challenges. His absence was noted quickly, and we were informed that a special unit of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been dispatched.
“Once in France, the question of how to get him into Britain remained. We couldn’t simply fly him in. Though unusual, it was determined infiltrating him into a group of fellow migrants preparing to cross the Channel by boat offered one solution.”
Despite a Border Force clipper placed on standby, the dinghy, set to land in Dover, sailed off course and ended up 30 miles away in Lydd.
It was only when police were told by motorists about 12 migrants on a beach that agents were able to collect him. He was taken to a safe house and questioned by UK and US agents, before being flown to America.
The British source said: “For our part, we were reassured during our interviews Iran seems to be sticking by the terms of the JCPOA. This is good news.”
Iran has always told the International Atomic Energy Agency about the Natanz facility. A second, near Qom, was only confirmed by the regime in September 2009 after it had been uncovered by CIA operatives.
Tehran has admitted the plants could be used to make warheads as well as generate power.
The technician said the two other plants, located 150 miles from Qom, were “insurance policies” should JCPOA break down.