TEHRAN, Iran — An Iranian nuclear scientist claimed Thursday he suffered extreme mental and physical torture at the hands of U.S. interrogators after disappearing last year, adding to Tehran’s allegations he was abducted by American agents.
The U.S. says he was a willing defector who changed his mind.
Shahram Amiri was embraced by his family — including his tearful seven-year-old son — after arriving in Tehran in the latest spectacle of a puzzling series of events that left Iran and Washington with starkly different accounts.
Washington described the 32-year-old Amiri as someone who reached out to U.S. officials, but have offered few other details.
Speaking to journalists after a flight via Qatar, Amiri repeated his claims that he was snatched while on a pilgrimage last year in the Saudi holy city of Medina and carried off to the United States.
“I was under the harshest mental and physical torture,” he said at Tehran’s international airport.