On Iraqi television he said that he was spying on Iraq and doing so at the behhest of the Zionist entity. It was a claim that was so ludicrous that it did not deserve a minute’s consideration. I too regarded such a statement as blatantly bogus.
For those of you who do not know about Farzad Bazoft here is his background. He was born in Iran in 1959. He moved to the United Kingdom in the 70s for his education. He became absolutely fluent in English. He was out of Iran when the Revolution occurred in 1979. He was an outspoken opponent of the new theocratic regime. Bazoft was penurious in 1980 and robbed a premises in the UK. For this he served a year in prison. He became a journalist on his release.
In the late 1980s he went to Iraq several times. The Iraqi Government knew he was Iranian born. Because he was a forthright critic of the mullahs the Ba’athists welcomed him with open arms. Several thousand Iranians were in Iraq fighting alongside the Iraqi Army. They hoped to defeat the mullahs and restore secularism in Iran.
Bazoft went with British nurse to investigate an enormous explosion near Baghdad. 700 people had been killed in it. F Bazoft was aware of rumours that this explosion was evidence that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction. Mr Bazoft and his friend Daphne Parish were later arrested and charged with espionage.
Bazfot lost a huge amount of weight in prison. No one knows for sure what Mukhabarat did to him in prison. Suffice it to say that the Iraqi secret police had a reputation as being the cruelest torturers in the world. They were known to dip limbs in acid and drill through bones. They could easily have extracted a false statement from Bazoft. In the video of him saying he worked for the Zionist entity notice how much he blinks. This is a sign of lying.
The Iraqi authorities were canny enough to clean him up to make this statement. He wore a suit and sat in a luxurious room while he made this declaration. Why would he say he worked for the Institute even if this were the case? To say so would be to sentence himself to death. He knew that. He would only have said this under duress. F Bazoft was executed by hanging a few months later.
Many people dismissed this claim as furphy. In Gordon Thomas’ book he claims that Bazoft really did work for Mossad. Can this be true? Is such a statement so daft after all?
Why do people work as secret agents for another country? They say MICE – Money, Ideology, Compromise and E .
Bazoft had financial problems and had robbed before. It is possible that he was paid by Tel Aviv.
It could have been ideology. He said he detested the Iranian Government. But did he? In the UK in the 1980s that was the only sensible thing to say. Teheran decried the UK as the Little Satan. He might secretly have approved of the Iranian regime. On the other hand he may have wished to serve Iran whatever its government. Your country is your country. The Iran-Iraq War had ended in 1988 but relations were still very tense in 1990. There was a possibility that the war would re-erupt. Remember that Israel and Iran co operated against Iraq. The enemy of my enemy of my friend. The Zionist Entity sold weapons to Persia. Iraq was seen as the most immediate threat to Israel so anything that weakened Iraq was good for Tel Aviv. That is why Bazoft might have served the Institute and done so in good conscience that he was advancing the cause of his native land. He could have been doing so because Iran wanted him to. He still had friends and relatives in Iran. They could be harmed if he did not play ball.
Compromise – he might have been caught doing something embarrassing and blackmailed into working for the Jewish State. No one has suggested what this might be.
Revenge – he might have been doing this to exact revenge.
We may never know the truth. Overall, I think it unlikely that he was a spy at all. He told the Iraqi authorities where he was going. He was pursuing a journalistic interest. He did not use tradecraft. He seemed to have no training as a secret agent. No one tried to get him out. In his case the Institute abandon people like him since he was not one of them. The Iraqi Army officer who was judge at the man’s trial said that he knew the defendant was innocent. Nevertheless the man presiding over the military court pronounced Bazoft guilty since he had been ordered to do so.
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