An Iranian nuclear scientist who spied for Israel was rescued from Iran and brought to Britain in a joint operation between Mossad, MI6, and the CIA, according to the Sunday Express newspaper.
It was in October 2018 when the scientist, 47, began to worry that his cover was blown. In order to save him, Mossad came up with a plan to extract him from Iran with the help of British and American intelligence agencies.
According to the Sunday Express, spy agencies wanted to talk to him to find out everything he knew about Iran’s nuclear programme.
Iran agreed to dismantle the weapons-capable aspects of its nuclear development program in 2015, and the West wanted to know if Iran had stuck to its promise.
Mossad rescued the agent from Iran in December after which he was debriefed in Israel before being taken to Europe and then on to the UK.
According to a report seen by the Sunday Express, MI6 was responsible for getting him through Europe and into the UK, after which he was to be transferred to the US.
However, Iranian authorities discovered he was missing and assembled a team to track him down.
A source told the Sunday Express: “This wasn’t without its challenges. His absence was noted quickly, and we were informed that a special unit of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was sent after him.”
According the report, the scientist got as far as France when British intelligence agencies ran into a problem.
The UK was still bound by the 2015 agreement with Iran and did not want to allow the scientist in through any official channel.
According to the report, agents decided to smuggle the scientist into Britain by hiding him among Iranian migrants aiming to reach Britain’s shores.
A source told the Sunday Express: “We couldn’t simply fly him in. Though unusual, it was determined infiltrating him into a group of fellow migrants preparing to cross the Channel by boat offered one solution.”
The scientists posed as a migrant and joined 11 other Iranians who set off from France in a rubber dinghy to cross the English Channel.
The plan was to land in Dover on New Year’s Eve, the report said, however the dinghy drifted off course and was picked up further down the coast in Lydd.
At the time the arrival of the dinghy was widely covered by British media but reporters did not know the scientist was among the passengers.
Police were sent to the beach to pick up the migrants, at which point MI6 agents picked up the scientist and took him to a safe house to be questioned by intelligence officials.
A British source told the Sunday Express: “We were reassured during our interview Iran seems to be sticking by the terms of the JCPOA. This is good news.”
The agent was later sent to the US for more questioning by officials according to the report.
According to sources the scientist is believed to have been involved in the 2012 assassination of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist and director of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
Mr Roshan was blown up by a bomb attached to his car in Tehran, sources told the paper.
