Iranwire, a news service run by expatriate Iranian journalists, reports that the American prisoner recently freed by Tehran, about whom nothing was previously known, was once a California carpet seller and an FBI consultant.
Belying recent Iranian claims that it has no knowledge of the whereabouts of another American who vanished in Iran nine years ago, Robert A. Levinson, a CIA contractor, Iranwire said Iranian officials may have believed the Khosravi had links to his case.
Iranwire asserted that the former prisoner, who in the United State was said to have gone by the name Fred Khosravi, had left Iran. Khosravi was the only freed American prisoner who did not depart the country in a Swiss Air Force jet immediately after the deal to release prisoners was announced a week ago.
Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist behind Iranwire, said on twitter that the agency waited to report on Khosravi’s background until it was certain he was safely out of Iran.
Khosravi is described as a former soldier in his 50s who after the Islamic revolution in 1979 was deployed to Iran’s northeast, and who left Iran in the 1980s amid a massive exodus and headed for the United States. Iranwire said Khosravi settled in California, that hosts the largest Iranian expatriate community, working in the carpet business as a designer and vendor.