Asgari is believed to be the highest-ranking Iranian official to defect to the West. Analysts say he served as an intelligence official in Lebanon during the 1990s and became deputy defense minister under then-President Mohammad Khatami.
After a business trip to Syria in 2006, Asgari left for Turkey, and then dropped out of sight. "Because of the intelligence he had he was very much in danger," Ebrahimi said. "He had very precious intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program."
Ebrahimi said he coordinated with international organizations and U.S. officials to help Asgari leave Turkey for the West in late 2006. The two met in Nicosia, Cyprus, immediately after Asgari left Turkey, he said.
"I did nothing illegal," Ebrahimi said. "I helped him. We didn't get him out illegally."
Reports in Western media suggest that Asgari has proved a gold mine for intelligence services seeking information about Iran's nuclear program and support for militant Islamic groups throughout the Middle East.
Iranian authorities and Asgari's relatives blamed Turkey and Iranian opposition groups for the defection.
Istanbul lawyer Nasrine Hosseinzadeh, who oversaw Ebrahimi's case at the airport, said Turkey and Iran had an agreement requiring each to hand over wanted political criminals. But international law requires that deportees be returned to the country where their flight originated.
"The law is very clear," Hosseinzadeh said in a phone interview from the airport. "I don't think they will allow him into Turkey, but they can't send him to Iran."
Like Asgari, Ebrahimi turned against Iran's Shiite Muslim clerical government. He was once a government enforcer and an attache at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut.
In a videotaped statement, he described connections between political leaders and pro-government militias in the violent crushing of student protests in 1999. He was arrested and imprisoned for several years in Tehran's Evin prison, including 18 months in an infamous solitary confinement ward for political dissidents. Since fleeing Iran, he has worked as a journalist and blogger.--
daragahi@latimes.com
