Nov 20, 2008 1:49 pm US/Eastern
Congress To Press Iran For Info On Missing Fla.Man
WASHINGTON (CBS4) ―
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Robert Levinson, a former FBI Agent who lives in Coral Springs, vanished on a business trip to Iran.
bbc.co.uk
A Florida congressman is trying to turn up the heat up on Iran to get their assistance in finding a missing Coral Springs man.
Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent and father of 7, went missing on the Iranian resort island of Kish, back in March, 2007, while working as a private investigator for cigarette companies.
Thursday U.S. Senator Bill Nelson asked his fellow lawmakers to pass a resolution he introduced that would signal to Iran the U.S. government's strong desire to see the matter resolved.
In the resolution, Congress calls upon the U.S. government and its allies to encourage Iranian officials to raise Levinsons case at every opportunity and at every level.
Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in an interview earlier this year that his country was willing to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement on the Levinson case. Nelson's resolution calls on Tehran to follow through and give the FBI any evidence the Iranians have about Levinson's disappearance.
The details of Levinson's trip to Kish remain murky. Christine Levinson said her husband usually called home twice a day and text-messaged her and their children often from his cell phone while he was on business trips. When the phone calls and text messages stopped, she said she became concerned then worried.
Levinson found out that her husband apparently met with Dawud Salahuddin, an American fugitive living in Iran who is wanted for the assassination of a former Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980. Salahuddin has said that he was suddenly taken into custody by Iranian police while the two men were in a hotel lobby. Salahuddin said he was questioned about his documents. When he was released hours later, he returned to the hotel and discovered Levinson was gone.
Christine Levinson believes her husband is still in Iran because his name has not shown up on any flight manifests of planes leaving the country and his passport, which was flagged, has not been used anywhere.
The Iranian government has denied any knowledge of Levinson despite repeated requests on his whereabouts by the State Department through Swiss intermediaries.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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