Iran president was our captor, claim ex-hostages

Five former American hostages claim Iran’s new president-elect was one of their captors, 25 years after they endured a 444-day kidnap ordeal.

Watching coverage of Iran’s presidential election on television dredged up memories that prompted four of the former hostages to exchange emails in the firm belief that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been one of their Iranian captors.

“This is the guy. There’s no question about it,” said former hostage Chuck Scott, a retired US army colonel who lives in Jonesboro, Georgia. “You could make him a blond and shave his whiskers, put him in a zoot suit and I’d still spot him.”

Scott and former hostages David Roeder, William Daugherty and Don Sharer told The Associated Press they had no doubt Ahmadinejad, aged 49, was one of the hostage-takers. A fifth ex-hostage, Kevin Hermening, said he reached the same conclusion after looking at photos.

But not everyone agrees. Former hostage and retired US Air Force colonel Thomas Schaefer said he did not recognise Ahmadinejad, by face or name, as one of his captors.

Several former students among the hostage-takers also said Ahmadinejad did not participate. And a close aide to Ahmadinejad denied the president-elect took part in the seizure of the embassy or in holding Americans hostage.

Militant students seized the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days to protest over Washington’s refusal to hand over the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for trial. The Shah fled Iran earlier that year after he was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution.

The aide, Meisan Rowhani, told AP from Tehran that Ahmadinejad was asked during recent private meetings if he had a role in the hostage taking. Rowhani said he replied: “No. I believed that if we do that the world will swallow us.”

Another former hostage, Paul Lewis, said he thought Ahmadinejad looked vaguely familiar when he saw a picture of him on the news last week, but the former US Marine embassy guard said he could not be certain.

“My memories were more of the gun barrel, not the people behind it,” Lewis said.

Scott and Roeder both said they were sure Ahmadinejad was present while they were interrogated.

“I can absolutely guarantee you he was not only one of the hostage-takers, he was present at my personal interrogation,” Roeder said in an interview from his home in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Daugherty, who worked for the CIA in Iran and now lives in Savannah, said a man he is convinced was Ahmadinejad was among a group of ringleaders escorting a Vatican representative during a visit in the early days of the hostage crisis.

“It’s impossible to forget a guy like that,” Daugherty said. “Clearly the way he acted, the fact he gave orders, that he was older, most certainly he was one of the ringleaders.”

Ahmadinejad, the hardline mayor of Tehran, was declared winner of Iran’s presidential run-off election yesterday, defeating one of Iran’s best-known statesmen, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The stunning upset put conservatives firmly in control of all branches of power in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Scott, Roeder, Daugherty and Sharer said they had been exchanging e-mails since seeing Ahmadinejad emerge as a serious contender in Iran’s elections.

“He was extremely cruel,” said Sharer, of Bedford, Indiana. “He’s one of the hardliners. So that tells you where their government’s going to stand for the next four to five years.”

After seeing recent newspaper photos, Sharer said: “I don’t have any doubts” that Ahmadinejad was a hostage-taker.”

But a memory expert warned that people who discussed their recollections could influence one another in reinforcing false memories. Also, it was harder to identify from memory someone of a different race or ethnicity, said psychologist Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California, Irvine.

“Twenty-five years is an awfully long time,” Loftus said. “Of course we can’t say this is false, but these things can lead people down the path of having a false memory.”