Fereydun Abbasi-Davani, subject to UN sanctions because of what Western officials say is his involvement in nuclear weapons research, also accused Israel and the United States of trying to kill him and other Iranian scientists.
Abbasi-Davani leveled his charges in talking with reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.
His charges stood in stark contrast with the “charm offensive” Western officials say Iran has been mounting in recent weeks to try to ease international pressure.
Abbasi-Davani told a news conference Tuesday, “Six years ago the intelligence service of the UK began collecting information and data regarding my past, my family, the number of children.
“The agents of MI6 of England in different and various places, including the airport in France, in scientific places in Poland, Italy, Netherlands, Malaysia, … repeatedly followed me and looked for information regarding myself.”
They even “checked until the back door of my room in the university to see whether I have a bodyguard or not,” Abbasi-Davani said through an interpreter.
Three nuclear scientists have been killed in the last two years in Tehran-one shot, one killed by a bomb in a motorcycle parked near the scientist’s parked car and the third killed by a magnetic bomb attached to his car while it was moving through traffic.
Abbas-Davani was himself slightly wounded in a 2010 magnetic car bomb attack. He realized what was happening and jumped out the other side of the car just in the nick of time.
He said the UK tracking of him began in 2005, five years before the attempt on his life.
Abbasi-Davani said the attacks were carried out by Israel with the “support of the intelligence services of the United States and England.”
A nuclear scientist, he was named to his current post a few months after the attack on him.
Washington has denied any involvement in the murders and Israel has declined to comment. The Foreign Office in London declined to comment on his latest allegations.