Free Missing Man by Barry Meier Page A

voice on the phone. I tried to accomplish a couple of things. One, I need his patience and trust in that I want to be as complete as I can when we sit down and talk about pistachios, etc … Second, I would like to sit down with him in a place other than where he is, despite his assurances of my safety, etc. I think that I was able to get that over for starters. I wanted to be able to sit down with him one-on-one, even if it’s for a short time. I also specifically requested and tried to emphasize that if he or anybody else there has other leads I can pursue regarding pistachios in Toronto, he should send them through an email to you. I hope you can reiterate that for me. I don’t want to jump the gun, claim I’ve got everything when I still have to nail many things down on the nut business …
    Best wishes.
    Talk soon. Returning home Sunday evening.
    On behalf of Uncle, thanks (I really mean that!).

 
    4
    Boris
    Bob Levinson arrived in Toronto in the early fall of 2006 to meet someone who knew a lot about the “pistachio man.” He was an Iranian-born oil industry consultant named Houshang Bouzari who had served as a close advisor to Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani until he ran afoul of the politician. Then he had been nearly tortured to death.
    Bouzari was among Tehran’s best and brightest. After studying abroad and receiving a doctorate in physics, he returned home following the Islamic Revolution and attracted Rafsanjani’s attention. The politician, then chairman of Iran’s parliament, hired Bouzari as a speechwriter and appointed him an advisor to Iran’s national oil company. After several years, Bouzari decided to leave Iran and moved to Rome, where he established himself as an energy industry consultant, setting up deals between multinational producers and the Iranian government. In 1990, he helped put together a $1.8 billion plan for oil companies to exploit a massive natural gas reserve known as the South Pars field that lay beneath the Persian Gulf between Iran and Qatar. Over time, Bouzari’s commissions on the deal were scheduled to reach $35 million.
    After the deal was struck, Rafsanjani, who had become Iran’s president in 1989, summoned Bouzari to Tehran and asked him to mentor his son Medhi, who was then twenty-one, in the energy business. Over the next two years, Bouzari would later say, he subsidized Mehdi Rafsanjani’s travel through Europe, including stays at five-star hotels and evenings with escorts. Then Mehdi, through an intermediary, demanded a $50 million payment from Bouzari, threatening to scrap the South Pars project if he was not paid. The consultant’s friends warned Bouzari to flee Iran and the wrath of the Rafsanjani family, advice he failed to heed. In 1993, three Iranian intelligence agents arrived at his apartment, arrested him, and brought him blindfolded to Evin Prison, where his nightmare began. Guards forced his head into a toilet filled with excrement. Electric prods were applied to his kneecaps, throat, and genitals. He was strapped down on a table and a metal cable was used to whip his feet. On several occasions, he was informed he would be executed. Guards came to his cell and escorted him to a scaffold, where they blindfolded him. He heard a trapdoor drop open. After the blindfold was removed, he realized he hadn’t been standing on the door. Eventually, through bribes and guile, Bouzari managed to escape Iran.
    Bob learned about him because of a lawsuit Bouzari filed in Toronto against Mehdi Rafsanjani. A Canadian organization working on that lawsuit was affiliated with the Center for Justice and Accountability, the human rights group for which Bob did investigations, and he used the connection to contact Bouzari. He told him he was conducting an investigation for a client interested in Iran’s oil industry and government. When Bob met the consultant, twelve years had passed since his ordeal in Evin Prison