The Islamic Republic gave hardly any attention to his return, although it has insisted for years that Amir-Hossain Ardebili was kidnaped by the Americans and has repeatedly demanded his return.
A very brief announcement on state television said Ardebili had been freed “thanks to the Foreign Ministry’s consular and judicial support.” Actually, Ardebili had finished the prison term to which he was sentenced.
Ardebili was deported March 13 after serving 4-1/2 years in custody.
Ardebili arranged to smuggle American military gear to Iran from his home in Shiraz. US customs officers, pretending to be arms merchants, lured him to a meeting in the Republic of Georgia in October 2007. He was arrested there and extradited to he United States.
Ardebili, 38, pleaded guilty in 2008 in a US court in Delaware to attempting to buy restricted military-grade radar, gyroscopes and cockpit computers for the F-4 fighter jet.
US officials kept the case secret for two years after the 2007 arrest, seeking to exploit the sales data found on the laptop computer Ardebili had brought with him to Georgia. It isn’t known how many other smugglers were pursued as a result, but a few court cases have been publicly linked to information from Ardebili’s computer.
Ardebili’s sentence expired February 8. US officials briefed on the matter told Reuters the Iranian spent the next five weeks in a Minnesota county jail undergoing a routine deportation review before he was put on a plane bound for Iran. In Tehran, he did not receive the grand public welcome and televised news coverage given last year when a convicted assassin finished his term in Britain and was deported.
Iranian officials asserted that Ardebili’s arrest, detention and extradition to the United States violated international law and amounted to a kidnaping. Tehran lodged a complaint with the United Nations, and the Foreign Ministry repeatedly cited Ardebili as one of many Iranians unjustly held by the United States.
American officials said Ardebili circumvented the US embargo by using a transshipment company in Dubai and banks in Germany and Switzerland.
The undercover investigation that trapped Ardebili, code named Operation Shakespeare, was launched in 2004 when Ardebili sent email queries about buying aircraft parts and radioisotopes to what he thought was a Pennsylvania arms broker. The American firm was actually a front operated by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In 2007, Ardebili agreed to meet three Americans in Tbilisi, Georgia, expecting to acquire the radar components and gyroscopes. During the meeting, which was secretly videotaped, an agent asked Ardebili why Iran was so eager to obtain the radar technology. To defend against an expected American attack, Ardebili responded. “They are making special radar,… phased array radar for protection,” he said on the videotape. “They think the war is coming.”
Although Ardebili pleaded guilty, he later said in an interview from prison that he regretted the decision. He had been tricked by the Americans, he said. He called the case against him an “elaborate hoax and plot.”
In a letter to Georgian officials that he shared with Reuters, he wrote, “You may wish to dismiss me as some common criminal. I am quite positive that the opposite is true. … The callous disregard of human life and rights, not to mention the shame and pain you caused my family, is near unforgivable.”
Two US officials briefed on the matter told Reuters Ardebili’s deportation moved with unusual swiftness. The Iranian government provided a new passport, suit and wristwatch.