Iran asks ICRC to probe intl. abductions

Tehran, February 28: Iran’s Foreign Minister calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to investigate the abduction of four Iranian diplomats by Israel and a Lebanese figure by Libya.

Ali Akbar Salehi made the remarks in a meeting with ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger in Geneva on Monday according to a statement released by the foreign ministry.

The four Iranian nationals, Ahmad Motevasselian, Seyyed Mohsen Mousavi, Taqi Rastegar-Moqaddam, and Kazem Akhavan were abducted at an inspection point in Lebanon by a group of gunmen on July 4, 1982 while they were travelling to the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria.

They were last heard of on June 2008, when the Lebanese Hezbollah Resistance Movement, received a report indicating that the diplomats were alive and in Israeli captivity.

Salehi also said the ICRC should open a probe into the fate of missing Shia Lebanese leader Imam Moussa al-Sadr, who went missing while on an official visit to Libya.

It is widely believed in Sadr, the founder of the Lebanon’s Amal movement, was kidnapped on the orders of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in August 1978.

Accompanied by two of his companions, Mohammed Yaqoub and Abbas Badreddin, Sadr was scheduled to meet with officials from the Gaddafi regime.

In 2008, the government in Beirut issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi over Sadr’s disappearance.

Kellenberger praised Iran’s positive efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Iraq and Afghanistan and expressed satisfaction with the Islamic Republic’s cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

——–Agencies