Missing Iranian scientist says he escaped 'kidnapping' by CIA agents

Iran's state television aired a third video of an alleged missing nuclear scientist Tuesday, which conflicts with accounts of the fate of a man Tehran says was kidnapped by the CIA.

Shahram Amiri, a university researcher working for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia a year ago, and Tehran accused Riyadh of handing him over to the US, which Saudi Arabia has denied.

Earlier this month Iranian television showed the first video of a man it said was Amiri. In the footage, Amiri said he had been kidnapped, taken to the United States and tortured.

However, shortly after that footage was broadcast, a second video appeared on Youtube, also purporting to be Amiri, in which he said he was voluntarily staying in the US and doing research.

"It's ludicrous for anyone to suggest that this individual was kidnapped by the United States," a US official in Washington said Tuesday. "If he's able to produce videos, it defies human logic to allege that he's somehow been held against his will by Americans."

In Tuesday's video, the man described as Amiri said he had fled US "agents" and was in hiding. He rejected the second footage as "a sheer lie" and urged human rights groups to help him return to Iran.

"I could be arrested again by American security agents any minute ... I am not free here, and I do not have permission to contact my family or others, and if anything happens to me or if I do not return to (my) country, the American government is directly responsible," he said in the latest film.

The man in all the videos looked similar to photographs of Amiri that have appeared previously in Iranian media.

In March, ABC News said Amiri had defected to the United States and was helping the CIA. A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

Agencies