International

Family of FBI agent held in Iran for 9 – yrs calls for his release

Published

8 years ago

March 6, 2016

A rally for the release of Robert Levinson- a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran nine-years ago while on a CIA mission was staged by friends and family members who expressed anger and disappointment that Robert was not part of a prisoner exchange with Tehran in January.

Stephanie Levinson Curry, his second-oldest child, said her autistic 9-year-old son Ryan cried for days when the other American captives were released, but not his grandfather.,

The rally’s stage was decorated with nine chained and padlocked glass cookie jars filled with yellow rocks, each one representing a day Levinson has been held captive. The crowd held yellow signs showing the social media hashtag “whataboutbob.”

Read also: Iran frees 4 US prisoners

“Bob Levinson has been deprived of being a grandfather, a job that he would love so much,” Curry said. “We worry all the time about what he is thinking while he is alone in his cell. Even prisoners in jail get to see their families, write them letters and call them. Bob Levinson has none of that.”

60-year-old Robert, a married father of seven who disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island in March 2007 was working for the CIA on an unauthorized intelligence-gathering mission to glean information about Iran’s nuclear program.

If Levinson remains alive, he has been held captive longer than any American — longer than then-AP journalist Terry Anderson, who was held more than six years in Beirut in the 1980s. Unlike Anderson, Levinson’s whereabouts and captors remain a mystery. U.S. officials believe the Iranian government was behind his disappearance but Tehran has denied having a hand in his disappearance.

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