Confused About Iranian Scientist? Wait for the Film

(July 22) -- The mysterious tale of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri sounds like it's straight from a spy thriller film: He disappeared on a Saudi pilgrimage in 2009, reappeared in a flurry of Web videos about torture and escape and then turned up in Washington last week asking to go home.

And after a media-frenzied welcome worthy of a movie star at Tehran's airport last week, Amiri may become just that. Iranian media are reporting today that Amiri's tale is being made into a TV movie.

Amir-Hosseini Ashtiani, a senior official at the Iranian movie studio Sima Film, told the semi-official Fars news agency that his studio is working on a screenplay about Amiri's life. "Several young screenwriters are collaborating in this project, and shooting will begin as soon as the screenplay is finished," Ashtiani also told the Tehran Times.

The plot? Amiri's kidnapping at the hands of the CIA, and his triumphant return to Iran, Fars reported.

But both the U.S. and Iran have claimed Amiri's loyalty at various points.

American officials have said that 32-year-old Amiri was a CIA informant for years while living in Iran, where he worked on radioactive isotopes at the capital's Malek Ashtar University. They've been quoted as saying he willingly defected to the United States, via its ally Saudi Arabia, but later changed his mind. He reportedly decided to return to Iran without the $5 million the CIA offered him in exchange for "significant" information about his country's disputed nuclear program.

But Iran is now calling Amiri a double agent whose alleged defection was staged as part of a plot by Tehran to see how much U.S. intelligence agencies actually know about Iran's nuclear activities. He ended up delivering "very valuable information" about the CIA, according to an unnamed official.

"This was an intelligence war between the CIA and us, which was planned and managed by Iran," an unidentified "informed source" told Fars, which has close ties to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards. "We had set various goals in this battle and, by the grace of God, we achieved all our objectives without our rival getting any real victory."

The Fars report was quoted by CNN and other news agencies Wednesday, but was not available on the agency's English-language site today.

"We sought to obtain good information from inside the CIA. While Amiri was still in the U.S., we managed to establish contact with him in early 2010 and obtained very valuable information accordingly. He was managed and guided [by us]," the source was quoted as saying.

Fars also reported that Amiri rattled off the license plates of two CIA-owned vehicles, offering them as proof that he had gleaned secret information while inside the United States.

Iran's double-agent claim is the latest twist in Amiri's tale. He claims to have been abducted by American agents in Saudi Arabia, and afterward is believed to have appeared in a string of Internet videos offering different versions of events -- that he'd been tortured in U.S. custody, escaped and was living freely in Arizona and another one saying he was studying in the States.

Iran sought to portray his homecoming last week as a victory over Washington's efforts to glean valuable intelligence on Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

But American officials said that even if Amiri had been a double agent, they got more information out of him than Iran will ever be able to.

"He never had access to American intelligence information," an anonymous U.S. official told The New York Times. "That's a joke. When you stack what Amiri might have learned here -- what he had for dinner or the fake name of someone who might have come to see him -- up against verified insights about Iran's nuclear program, it's crystal clear that we got the better end of things."

Perhaps we'll just have to wait for the movie.