Academic in US Charged as Unregistered Iran Agent

An Iranian-born political scientist and author who has lived in the United States for the last 35 years was arrested by FBI agents at his home in Massachusetts and charged in New York City federal court with acting as an unregistered agent of Iran.

Kaveh Lotfolah Afrasiabi, 63, was charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires individuals working in the United States as agents on behalf of foreign countries to register.

Since 2007, Afrasiabi has “derived a significant portion of his income from compensation for services performed at the direction and under the control” of the Iranian government, answering to officials at the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, according to the arrest warrant affidavit and criminal complaint filed Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.

He is alleged to have acted as an official spokesman for Iran including doing news interviews and writing op-eds for various news outlets, and also lobbied US officials, while positioning himself as an objective expert on Iran. He is said to have been taking direction from press secretaries at the mission.