CNN
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Right here’s a have a look at the lifetime of Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007.
Start date: March 10, 1948
Start place: Flushing, New York
Start identify: Robert Alan Levinson
Father: Title unavailable publicly
Mom: Title unavailable publicly
Marriage: Christine (Gorman) Levinson
Youngsters: Douglas, Samantha, David, Daniel, Sarah, Stephanie and Susan
Training: Metropolis Faculty of New York, B.A., 1970
Throughout his profession on the FBI, Levinson specialised in investigating organized crime in Russia.
His household mentioned Levinson suffered from diabetes and hypertension.
Nineteen Seventies – Levinson is employed by the FBI after six years with the Drug Enforcement Company.
1998 – Levinson retires from the FBI.
1998-2007 – Levinson works as a non-public investigator.
2006 – Levinson is employed as a contractor by Tim Sampson, head of the Illicit Finance Group throughout the Workplace of Transnational Points on the CIA, to put in writing studies for the company. The contract is for approximately $85,000. Three CIA workers, together with Sampson, later lose their jobs for overstepping their authority as analysts and withholding details about Levinson after he disappeared.
March 8-9, 2007 – In keeping with State Division officers, Levinson travels to Kish Island in Iran and checks right into a resort. Reportedly, Levinson is within the Center East to research cigarette smuggling on behalf of a consumer. Through the go to, he meets with American fugitive Dawud Salahuddin, who’s the final particular person to acknowledge seeing him on March 9.
June 1, 2007 – US President George W. Bush says he is “disturbed” by Iran’s refusal to provide any information on Levinson. “I name on Iran’s leaders to inform us what they learn about his whereabouts.”
December 2007 – Levinson’s spouse, Christine Levinson, meets with government officials in Iran, however doesn’t study something about her husband’s disappearance.
2008 – The CIA pays the Levinson family more than $2 million to move off a lawsuit, based on household legal professional David McGee.
March 3, 2011 – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that evidence is growing that Levinson is alive and being held somewhere in southwest Asia.
December 2011 – The Levinson family publicly releases a “proof of life” video they obtained in November 2010. Within the video, Levinson says, “I’ve been handled effectively, however I would like the assistance of the USA authorities to reply the requests of the group that has held me for three-and-a-half years. And please assist me get dwelling. Thirty-three years of service to the USA deserves one thing. Please assist me.”
March 6, 2012 – The FBI offers a $1 million reward for data resulting in his secure return.
September 2012 – Christine Levinson makes an attempt to fulfill with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad throughout the UN Basic Meeting in New York. He doesn’t meet along with her however tells CNN, “They advised me (Levinson) was in Iran, and naturally the query got here up in my thoughts, what was an American intelligence officer doing in Iran…a person is misplaced, how are we supposed to search out him amongst 7 billion individuals unfold throughout the globe? What we will do is help, assist and cooperate, which we now have been doing, and we’re doing… as a humanitarian gesture and motion.”
January 2013 – The Levinson family releases a series of photographs they obtained in April 2011. Within the photographs, a bearded, shackled Levinson, sporting an orange jumpsuit, holds indicators written in damaged English.
September 27, 2013 – US President Barack Obama speaks by cellphone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. One of many subjects mentioned is Levinson.
December 12, 2013 – The Related Press and The Washington Put up report that Levinson was working for the CIA when he disappeared in 2007, probably investigating corruption amongst Iranian officers. The AP says it first discovered of Levinson’s CIA ties in 2010 however delayed publishing the data on the authorities’s request. The following day the New York Occasions studies it has identified of Levinson’s CIA work since 2007 but additionally delayed publishing the data to keep away from jeopardizing his security.
December 13, 2013 – White Home Spokesman Jay Carney says Levinson “was not a US government employee when he went lacking in Iran.”
December 2013 – Salahuddin, the last person to acknowledge seeing Levinson, tells the Christian Science Monitor that both he and Levinson were detained by Iranian police on March 9, 2007.
January 21, 2014 – In an interview with CNN, Levinson’s family discloses that they have known for some time that he was working for the CIA. They accuse the US authorities of failing to do sufficient to search out Levinson.
March 9, 2015 – The FBI will increase the reward for data on Levinson to $5 million.
February 11, 2016 – The Senate passes a resolution recognizing that Levinson is the longest held US civilian in US historical past and urges Iran to “act on its guarantees to help within the case of Robert Levinson.”
March 21, 2017 – Levinson’s family files a lawsuit against Iran with the US District Court docket in Washington, DC. The grievance states that the household is submitting go well with beneath the International Sovereign Immunities Act “for accidents suffered by every of them because of Iran’s illegal acts of hostage taking, torture and different torts.”
November 4, 2019 – The Department of State Rewards for Justice Program announces a reward of up to $20 million for data resulting in the secure return of Levinson, along with the FBI’s previously announced reward of $5 million.
March 9, 2020 – On the thirteenth anniversary of Levinson’s abduction, the FBI renews its “repeated calls to Iran to uphold its prior commitments to cooperate and to share information which could lead to Bob’s return.”
March 25, 2020 – The family of Levinson announces that they believe he is dead. “We not too long ago obtained data from U.S. officers that has led each them and us to conclude that our great husband and father died whereas in Iranian custody,” they mentioned in a press release.
October 1, 2020 – A US courtroom orders the federal government of Iran to pay greater than $1.4 billion to Levinson’s household for compensatory and punitive damages.
December 14, 2020 – Senior US authorities officers say they’ve recognized and sanctioned two senior Iranian intelligence officials who were involved in the abduction and “probable death” of Levinson.