My local newspaper, the Raleigh News & Observer, offered more details this morning on the role that new Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have played in the 1979 hostage crisis. The report includes a picture that sure looks like Ahmadinejad helping to push a blindfolded hostage through a crowd.

Former hostage and Retired Air Force Col. David Roeder, who now lives in Pinehurst, NC, says he recognizes Ahmadinejad as the head of a team of interrogators who threatened to kidnap Roeder’s son, chop off his toes and fingers, and send them back to his wife in the U.S. Roeder doesn’t claim that Ahmadinejad made the threats himself, but that he was in charge of the thugs that did it. The interrogation was “the most traumatic thing I’ve ever experienced,” said Roeder, who flew 100 missions over Vietnam. He said that Ahmadinejad’s team knew his family’s address, daily commuting patterns, and even the bus that his son took to his special-education school.

Oh, yeah, that’s one of the most chilling details: Roeder’s son had cerebral palsy. Delightful, delightful “student activist” we have here.