AP Photo of Iran President as hostage taker. Fake ?

Hrm, I want to eat, smoke, snort, drink, inject, sleep with or live in whatever this guy has.

Like 30 years and he hasn't aged a frigin bit?

Do Iranians know more about cloning then we do?

[edit on 30-6-2005 by thematrix]

I just heard a radio report on this story, in the report they are using the fact that his nose and ears are different than the old picture.

Which doesn't really settle anything. If I remember correctly,
for men, unfortunately, the nose, and the ears, are parts of the body that continue to grow, throughout our lifetimes..

come on BoatPhone... CNN 'confirms' you say?

ohh and how exactly did they do that? they simply posted the EXACT same story as broke earlier...

Now the BBC, they actually investigated the facts, the images, did interviews with the people involved, and found them to NOT be the same two people... i'm sorry, but CNN hasn't confirmed a god damn thing, and i repeat, just because CNN posts the same exact story does not confirm anything, its a re-hash. You have to stop thinking that just because a major network like CNN posts something makes it true... the real world doesn't work like that... Until CNN debunks the BBC article, I'd say with confidence that the BBC is at the moment correct.

So CNN sez it's him!

Whatever. Boatphone, since the inception of the CIA, the media has always been used to manipulate public opinion. At times, they have placed agents covertly into virtually all privately owned news outlets. Read this to learn more: www.nnn.se...

god damn

Hey - watch the language!

There are women and children here ....

Geez!

People they are playing videos of the man on T.V.! They are interviewing former hostages and they remember him and know 100% it him.


Sorry, but I would tend to believe the hostages rather than you people who think EVERYTHING is fake or a huge lie! They could have DNA proff that it is the same man, and you guy would satill say that the "evil government has the power to create DNA or some crazy nonsense.

[edit on 30-6-2005 by Boatphone]

[edit on 30-6-2005 by Boatphone]

This is a request for a link to the BBC article.
The article that says these are not the same man..
Not the OTHER BBC link, the one that says he founded the group that
took the hostages...

Thanks!

Wether he is or isn't the man in the photo this does not bode well for the prospects of peace between the two countries.

One quick comment is that if he was involved in the hostage taking wouldn't he admit it? Wouldn't most Iranians consider this a good thing? What would he gain by lying about his involvement?

Originally posted by Boatphone
Sorry, but I would tend to believe the hostages rather than you people who think EVERYTHING is fake or a huge lie! They could have DNA proff that it is the same man, and you guy would satill say that the "evil government has the power to create DNA or some crazy nonsense.

I completely agree! I'm getting sick of hearing that absolutely everything, everywhere is completely fake and the product of some CIA black project or made by aliens or something and that everyone is corrupt and lying...

Originally posted by cryptorsa1001
Wether he is or isn't the man in the photo this does not bode well for the prospects of peace between the two countries.

One quick comment is that if he was involved in the hostage taking wouldn't he admit it? Wouldn't most Iranians consider this a good thing? What would he gain by lying about his involvement?

No, many people in Iran and most all of the young people their like American and want the freedoms that we have in the U.S. The religious leaders of Iran are having a hard time keeping them under control. That is why they had to fix the election there.

Originally posted by Boatphone
Geez!

People they are playing videos of the man on T.V.! They are interviewing former hostages and they remember him and know 100% it him.

Can you prove they saw and knew him? In every photo being bandied about, the hostages were blindefolded.

I am sick, absolutely sick of hearing everything that comes outta Bush's mouth thats fake and about the CIA projects too

Originally posted by cryptorsa1001
if he was involved in the hostage taking wouldn't he admit it? Wouldn't most Iranians consider this a good thing? What would he gain by lying about his involvement?

Exactly. Being the hardliner he is, he would most likely say 'yeah, it was me. So what!' According to sources, his office has vehemently denied the charge.

Still reading through BBC news website.
Still can't find the article claiming the two photos are not the same man.
Where is the article?

Boatphone, do you even know who elected this guy? It was the middle class who chose him over Rhafsanjani - who by all accounts was supposed to win. They chose the candidate they saw has sharing their values. Just like in this last supposed US election. Call it an Iranian red state victory.

i cant imagine that the President of Iran would lie about such a huge accusation made against him so early on in his presidency... wouldn't be worth it if his own people found out he was lying, would destroy any credibility he has... and credibility he knows he needs to convince the world he has no nuclear weapons programme (not saying he does or doesn't but either way he'll want to prove the latter).

EastCoastKid, i think there is some confusion here about that BBC article... the report from the BBC on the debunking of this story was actually live on the tv, i haven't found it on the website either, i assumed when others talked about a BBC article that it was refering to this story...

[edit on 30-6-2005 by metallicabrainz]

If it's not him, then it's his twin I think....

Plus, if it's not true and Iran wants to debunk it, can't Iran produce some evidence against it? Where is the guy now if it's not the President? Where was the new President when it happened?

Sorry, but I would tend to believe the hostages rather than you people who think EVERYTHING is fake or a huge lie!

What about those hostages claiming otherwise to the BBC. CNN may say its true, but the BBC has made more of an argument that they are in fact not the same guy.

Besides, all of this… it seems almost too perfect for Bush. Seems quite coincidental that he is gaining yet another reason to attack Iran.

edit: changed to "not the same guy"

[edit on 30-6-2005 by Lethys]

Here's a link to a BBC article on the claim and counter-claims.

Last Updated: Thursday, 30 June, 2005, 15:11 GMT 16:11 UK

Iran victor 'kidnap role' probe

The president denies being among the hostage-takers
The US says it is examining reports that Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took part in the 1979 hostage-taking at Tehran's US embassy.
Some of the former US hostages have said they recognise Mr Ahmadinejad as one of their captors.

But three Iranians involved in the action, as well as Mr Ahmadinejad's own staff, have denied that he took part.

Mohsen Mirdamadi, the hostage-takers' leader, told the BBC that the new president had not been there.
news.bbc.co.uk...

There's some interesting information that hostage takers HAVE held political office in Iran, so it's not so far fetched that the President would have been a hostage taker.

Here's some interesting info:

The surviving gerogan-girha who have prospered most in the mullahocracy are regarded by many Iranians as opportunists, and the most tempting targets for this label are Muhammad Hashemi, who just retired as first deputy of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and his wife, Massoumeh Ebtekar, the Minister of the Environment. (If the smoggy skies of Tehran are any indication, Ebtekar has done her job with a notable lack of success.) They are Iran's premier power couple. As one might expect, both regard the embassy takeover as an unadulterated success. They promptly agreed to see me separately when I visited Iran in December.

www.geocities.com...

TEHRAN, Iran --Iran's supreme leader on Sunday appointed a former captor in the 1979 hostage crisis as the head of state-run radio and television.

Conservative Ezzatollah Zarghami, 45, was promoted by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from his post as deputy head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

Link

Paris, Jun. 29 – A principal French daily reported that newly-elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in charge of security at the United States embassy in Tehran after he and fellow radical students loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over the compound by force in November 1979.

Libération wrote that Ahmadinejad was a member of Students Following the Line of the Imam [Khomeini] and a leader of the hostage-takers who held American diplomats and embassy staff for 444 days.

www.iranfocus.com...

London, Jun. 29 – A veteran British journalist said that he had interviewed the newly-elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 1979, when he was a leading activist who took over the United States embassy in Tehran, holding American diplomats hostage for 444 days.

The BBC’s world affairs editor John Simpson wrote in an article posted on Monday on the British broadcasting giant’s website, “Ahmadinejad was a founder of the group of young activists who swarmed over the embassy wall and held the diplomats and embassy workers hostage for 444 days”.

Prior to the presidential elections, Iran Focus wrote Ahmadinejad’s biography revealing that the former Revolutionary Guards commander became a member of the Office for Strengthening Unity following the 1979 Islamic revolution and later on planned and participated in the storming of the U.S. embassy compound.

Simpson said that as soon as he saw a picture of Ahmadinejad, he knew there was something faintly familiar about him and later reading the state-run English-language daily Tehran Times he realised that he had recorded an interview with him and other hostage-takers after the siege was over.

www.iranfocus.com...

By John Simpson
BBC world affairs editor

As soon as I saw a picture of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's new president, I knew there was something faintly familiar about him.

And it was not because he was mayor of Tehran, because, like many other Western journalists, I have been barred from visiting Iran in recent years.

Then, when I read a profile of him in the English-language Tehran Times, I realised where I must have seen him: in the former American embassy in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad was a founder of the group of young activists who swarmed over the embassy wall and held the diplomats and embassy workers hostage for 444 days.

Somewhere in the BBC archives is the interview I recorded with him and his colleagues, long after the siege was over. They all seemed rather similar - quiet, polite, but with a burning zeal.

And now, contrary to almost every expectation except his own, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been elected president.

www.iranfocus.com...

Student activists in Elm-o Sanaat University at the time of the Iranian revolution were dominated by ultra-conservative Islamic fundamentalists. Ahmadinejad soon became one of their leaders and founded the Islamic Students Association in that university after the fall of the Shah’s regime.

In 1979, he became the representative of Elm-o Sanaat students in the Office for Strengthening of Unity Between Universities and Theological Seminaries, which later became known as the OSU. The OSU was set up by Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, who was at the time Khomeini’s top confidant and a key figure in the clerical leadership. Beheshti wanted the OSU to organise Islamist students to counter the rapidly rising influence of the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) among university students.

The OSU played a central role in the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Members of the OSU central council, who included Ahmadinejad as well as Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, Mohsen (Mahmoud) Mirdamadi, Mohsen Kadivar, Mohsen Aghajari, and Abbas Abdi, were regularly received by Khomeini himself.

According to other OSU officials, when the idea of storming the U.S. embassy in Tehran was raised in the OSU central committee by Mirdamadi and Abdi, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time. A decade later, most OSU leaders re-grouped around Khatami but Ahmadinejad remained loyal to the ultra-conservatives.

During the crackdown on universities in 1980, which Khomeini called the “Islamic Cultural Revolution”, Ahmadinejad and the OSU played a critical role in purging dissident lecturers and students many of whom were arrested and later executed. Universities remained closed for three years and Ahmadinejad joined the Revolutionary Guards.

In the early 1980s, Ahmadinejad worked in the “Internal Security” department of the IRGC and earned notoriety as a ruthless interrogator and torturer. According to the state-run website Baztab, allies of outgoing President Mohammad Khatami have revealed that Ahmadinejad worked for some time as an executioner in the notorious Evin Prison, where thousands of political prisoners were executed in the bloody purges of the 1980s.

In 1986, Ahmadinejad became a senior officer in the Special Brigade of the Revolutionary Guards and was stationed in Ramazan Garrison near Kermanshah in western Iran. Ramazan Garrison was the headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards’ “extra-territorial operations”, a euphemism for terrorist attacks beyond Iran’s borders.

In Kermanshah, Ahmadinejad became involved in the clerical regime’s terrorist operations abroad and led many “extra-territorial operations of the IRGC”. With the formation of the elite Qods (Jerusalem) Force of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad became one of its senior commanders. He was the mastermind of a series of assassinations in the Middle East and Europe, including the assassination of Iranian Kurdish leader Abdorrahman Qassemlou, who was shot dead by senior officers of the Revolutionary Guards in a Vienna flat in July 1989. Ahmadinejad was a key planner of the attack, according to sources in the Revolutionary Guards.

www.iranfocus.com...

Based on the evidence, I think it's not unlikely that he could have been involved in the hostage taking. However, the picture this thread is about is not the man the hostages are talking about when they say the president-elect was one of their captors.