The family of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran over ten years ago, has announced that U.S. officials believe he died in the intervening years.
“We recently received information from U.S. officials that has led both them and us to conclude that our wonderful husband and father died while in Iranian custody. We don’t know when or how he died, only that it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the family said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Those who are responsible for what happened to Bob Levinson, including those in the U.S. government who for many years repeatedly left him behind, will ultimately receive justice for what they have done. We will spend the rest of our lives making sure of this, and the Iranian regime must know we will not be going away,” the statement continued. “We expect American officials, as well as officials around the world, to continue to press Iran to seek Bob’s return, and to ensure those Iranian officials involved are held accountable.“
Levinson disappeared from Kish Island, off the coast of Iran, while on an intelligence-gathering mission with the CIA in 2007. While he was held in Iran, Levinson’s whereabouts remained unknown, and only in 2019 did Iranian authorities even publicly acknowledge filing a missing-person’s report regarding the former agent.