It's Time To Indict Ahmadinejad For Kidnapping!

Not exactly known as being keen on international law, Iran has decided they want US officals tried in "international circles":

Iran to Try 26 US Officials in Absentia
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran announced on Wednesday that it plans to try 26 US officials in absentia and file lawsuits against them at international bodies.

"Iran will certainly put the 26 US officials on trial in absentia and will pursue their cases at international circles," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Ali Aqazadeh told FNA.

"The Islamic Republic has earlier lodged complaints with international circles against the crimes committed by certain US officials in different countries, but today it has compiled a plan for sanctioning 26 US officials and will try these 26 criminals based on the plan," he added.

Trying officials in absentia?

Now that's an idea!
Let the US do the same thing: starting with Ahmadinejad!


The question of whether Ahmadinejad was involved in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis is an old one. Although some of the Americans held hostage at the time have expressed doubts, when Ahmadinejad first assumed power--some former hostages have said they remember Ahmadinejad from that time:

five former U.S. hostages Dr. William Daugherty (who worked for the CIA in Iran), Kevin Hermening, David Roeder, US Army Col. Charles Scott (Ret.), and US Navy Capt. Donald Sharer (Ret.) have alleged that Ahmadinejad was one of the leaders of the Iran Hostage Crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, during their 444-day captivity starting on November 4, 1979. All of the above-mentioned hostages have claimed that Ahmadinejad is the man whom they remember from their captivity. Ahmadinejad denies his presence in the embassy, other hostages are unsure about the identification and the CIA has reportedly questioned this identification.

Col. Charles Scott, now seventy-three, recently told the Washington Times[13] that "He was one of the top two or three leaders; the new president of Iran is a terrorist." Col. Scott claimed to recall an incident when Ahmadinejad berated a friendly Iranian guard who had allowed the two Americans to visit another U.S. hostage in a neighboring cell. Col. Scott, who understands Persian, said Ahmadinejad told the guard: "You shouldn't let these pigs out of their cells". Donald Sharer, a retired Navy captain who was for a time a cellmate of Col. Scott at the Evin prison in northern Tehran, remembered Ahmadinejad as "a hard-liner, a cruel individual". "I know he was an interrogator", said Capt. Sharer, now 64. Former hostages William Daugherty and Kevin Hermening also claim he was involved.

Scott and Roeder have also expressed certainty that Ahmadinejad was present at their interrogations. Scott asserted his certainty forcefully, stating: "This is the guy. There's no question about it. You could make him a blond and shave his whiskers, put him in a zoot suit and I'd still spot him." Both men, along with Sharer and Hermening, have stated their recollections of Ahmadinejad as an "extremely cruel" ringleader.

David Roeder made his claim in an interview with Der Spiegel in 2005:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You are claiming that the newly elected president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was one of those involved in taking and holding you hostage in Iran from November 1979 to January 1981. How can you be sure?
Roeder: He was present at at least a third of my personal interrogations, which took place nightly for a little over a month early on in the hostage-taking situation. He seemed to be calling the shots, but from the background. The interrogators would ask a question and it would then be translated from Farsi into English by a woman interpreter.

In addition to testimony, there are pictures of one of those involved with the kidnapping, which has always fueled speculation that Ahmadinejad was involved. This one is from The Jawa Report from his post:State Sponsor of Terror Has Terrorist as President: President Elect of Iran Involved in U.S. Embassy Hostage Takings (UPDATED)

From My Pet Jawa, who has more photos and info

While that photo, and others like it, have been inconclusive, Daniel Pipes has another possible picture of Ahmadinejad--a photo that gives new life to the accusation that Ahmadinejad was involved with the US hostages.

A new picture located by Kommersant re-opens this issue, providing new evidence that Ahmadinejad was not some backroom political type but in fact was a automatic gun-wielding hostage-taker. The person pictured here differs from the one in the Associated Press photograph, but should Ahmadinejad's identity as hostage-taker be established and accepted, it has two implications at this particularly delicate moment in U.S.-Iranian relations.

Pipes has a later post that updates this one, providing some background on that picture and providing more indications of Ahmadinejad's involvement:

Among the updates Pipes gives in that post:

Dec. 10, 2006 update: I have been contacted by Marisa of www.makingsenseofjihad.com who kindly directed me to her posting, "A Little Bit of Ahmadinejad in the Night," where she quotes an article from the February 14, 1999 issue of Aria, a no-longer-extant Tehran morning paper. In it, Ahmadinejad is positively identified as one of the five committee members who planned the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. 

In addition, Michael Rubin points to the April 30, 2003 issue of Ya Lisarat al-Hussain, the mouthpiece of the hard line Ansar-i Hizbullah movement, which describes Ahmadinejad as a participant in the embassy seizure.[link no longer works, but see archived copy here.]

July 1, 2009 update: John Rosenthal at NewMajority.com offers evidence that Ahmadinejad was one of the commandoes who carried out the gangland-style murder in Vienna on July 13, 1989, of three leaders of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan – Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Abdullah Ghaderi Azar, and Fadhil Rassoul.

So let Iran make an issue of alleged wrongs by US officials, the least the US can do is return the favor by renewing interest in Ahmadinejad and the Iranian hostage crisis.

And if you think that Ahmadinejad is not the type to take hostages--just take a look at Iran today.

Technorati Tag: Iran and Ahmadinejad.