• 2 months ago
panorama.s2014e07.kidnapped.betrayed.by.britain
Transcript
00:00A British citizen is kidnapped in Dubai, believed to be dead.
00:06The suspects?
00:08Intelligence agents from Iran.
00:10Now his wife, in her first television interview, says British authorities are also responsible.
00:15I do blame UK government.
00:18They put Abbas and many other people's life in danger.
00:22So why did the British government hand over his private documents to a hardline regime
00:28in Iran?
00:30He was afraid of being killed.
00:32He said that to you?
00:33Yes.
00:34Oh yes, he was afraid of his life.
00:36Tonight on Panorama, a secret deal that raises serious questions that go right to the heart
00:41of our government.
00:43Someone somewhere should be saying to us, I made this decision because...
00:47There should be some sort of accountability.
00:50I think that this is sufficiently serious for the Home Secretary to direct her personal
00:55attention to it.
00:59Dubai, a glittering Middle Eastern hub for business and tourism.
01:17It's the playground of the rich and famous, but there's another side to this place.
01:24One evening last June, a businessman leaves his office to go home.
01:30Abbas Yazdi is a British citizen born in Iran.
01:35In the car park, people are waiting.
01:39He's bundled into his own car, then driven to a nearby port and put on a boat to Iran.
01:49For eight months, his wife has been trying to find out what happened to her husband.
01:54Everything was so dark and scary.
01:58My husband was abducted.
02:00I didn't know what happened to him.
02:02I didn't know what's going on.
02:06Atayna Yazdi wants to know why the British Serious Fraud Office passed her husband's
02:11private business records to the Iranian state.
02:16This is unbelievable, because Abbas warned them that they're putting his life in danger
02:22by passing all this information to Iran.
02:27Mrs Yazdi's been told by the British Foreign Office they believe her husband is dead, but
02:33no one knows for sure.
02:35It's not only me, it's kids also, and I can't tell them if Abbas is, you know, alive.
02:42I can't tell them he's dead, because I don't believe it.
02:45They're friends, they're going to help you.
02:49After he disappeared, Mr Yazdi's family were given police protection in Britain, but now
02:54they're back in Dubai.
02:57Arad and Ayla are trying to adjust to life without their father.
03:00Every Friday or Saturday, he would take me and Arad to the movies.
03:06I miss him.
03:08I know, it's hard.
03:11I miss him too.
03:17Last month, three Iranians were arrested in Dubai, in connection with Mr Yazdi's abduction.
03:23A former director of public prosecutions had previously warned the Serious Fraud Office
03:29helping Iran could put lives at risk.
03:33The Iranian state is known for its complete contempt for the rule of law, for engaging
03:39in routine acts of torture, arbitrary executions, and an utter disregard for human rights.
03:47And it seemed extraordinary that a British prosecuting authority should be cooperating
03:52with an Iranian law enforcement authority in any way, but particularly in connection
03:57with a British citizen, and doing that behind his back.
04:02Abbas Yazdi grew up during Iran's Islamic Revolution, which brought the Ayatollahs to power.
04:10He went to school with children from influential families, among them the son of this man,
04:16Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, who became president and a powerful political player.
04:22Mehdi Rafsanjani would become a government official and wealthy businessman.
04:27Abbas Yazdi was his friend.
04:30They used to be classmates. They were very, very close to each other.
04:34Still, up to now, they are friends.
04:39Aged 24, Abbas Yazdi was imprisoned. His family say he was a victim of political infighting in Iran,
04:46between more moderate reformists like his friend's father, President Rafsanjani, and the hardliners.
04:54While he was in prison, because he was a close friend to Mehdi,
04:59and every time they wanted to put pressure onto Mehdi's family,
05:05it was Abbas being hostage, always like a hostage.
05:11Abbas Yazdi was in solitary confinement for six months, tortured and made to confess to false charges.
05:20One of the things they said to him, and he had to confess, was spying for UK, and they gave him death penalty.
05:31Some of Mr. Yazdi's influential friends in Iran helped him get temporary leave from prison.
05:37He fled abroad, like many others.
05:40This political rivalry between moderates and hardliners has often spilt out,
05:47and involved retribution and various punitive measures taken by one camp against the other at various points.
05:54And I think it's gone well beyond the court system, the judicial system.
05:59The Yazdis came to London in the 90s, and made their home in wealthy Knightsbridge.
06:07They had their children here, and Abbas Yazdi established a business consultancy.
06:12He set up his business and everything necessary to start a new life in a new country.
06:18But it wasn't easy, it was very difficult.
06:23In 2003, the Serious Fraud Office came calling.
06:27They raided Abbas Yazdi's office, took away copies of confidential material from his computers.
06:34It was at the request of the Norwegian authorities.
06:39They were interested in Mr. Yazdi's business dealings in Iran.
06:44I think the best way to describe him would be that he's a sort of fixer,
06:47and there's no doubt that at some time in the past, in 2003,
06:51the Norwegian prosecuting authorities had taken an interest in a company with which he was associated.
07:00In Norway, they were investigating a deal between their state energy company, Statoil, and the Iranians,
07:07to develop a gas field off southern Iran.
07:10Fraud investigators here wanted to know if Mehdi Rafsanjani,
07:14then an official in Iran's national oil and gas company, was getting a kickback of millions of dollars.
07:21And if Abbas Yazdi, whose company was involved in the deal, was acting as a frontman for his old friend.
07:31Kato Schatz was Mr. Yazdi's lawyer in the corruption investigation.
07:37The only thing that Abbas Yazdi was very keen to stress was that he had no part in it,
07:43and he had no knowledge of what was really the core of the matter.
07:48Is it fair to say that Mr. Yazdi had a reputation as a bit of a fixer?
07:52A man who perhaps dabbled in a shady world?
07:55I have absolutely no indication in that respect.
08:00A year later, Norway's corruption investigation into Statoil's deal in Iran was concluded.
08:09Statoil paid a fine of 20 million kroner, that's nearly 2 million pounds.
08:15It was the largest fine in any corruption case in Norway at that time.
08:20But the case was settled, and the company admitted no liability.
08:24The Norwegian authorities brought no charges against either Mr. Yazdi or his old friend, Meddy Rafsanjani.
08:33Both the British and the Norwegian authorities dropped any case against him.
08:38So Mr. Yazdi was completely exonerated?
08:41Yes, 100%.
08:45Abbas Yazdi moved his family to Dubai.
08:48Many expatriate Iranians live here and do business with Iran.
08:53And what was your husband doing in Dubai?
08:56He has a general trading company.
08:59And did he do business with Iran still? Did he have contacts and friends there?
09:03He has friends there, of course, but he didn't do any business with government in Iran.
09:10Iran's moderates were replaced in 2005 by a hardline government under President Ahmadinejad.
09:17The rise of this new Iranian faction means that new deals are being re-examined,
09:24old deals are being annulled, cancelled, shaken up.
09:29And one such deal the new regime reneged on was a multi-billion dollar gas contract
09:35with Crescent Petroleum based near Dubai.
09:38It had been signed by the previous Iranian government.
09:42Very big economic deals over that period, including deals on the size of the Crescent deal,
09:47did fall prey to political rivalries.
09:49They fell victim to higher level political machinations.
09:53Mr. Yazdi and Crescent both said after initial contacts he wasn't involved in the deal.
09:59But years later he'd be dragged into a legal battle over it.
10:05The hardline government was forced to re-examine the deal.
10:09The hardliners, led by Ahmadinejad, were soon creating waves internationally,
10:15denying the Holocaust, enriching uranium.
10:18The West feared for the bomb.
10:20Then in 2007 the Iranian Navy seized British sailors in the Gulf.
10:25Ahmadinejad paraded them on television before releasing them.
10:31The seizure of British sailors I think was a crisis point for the UK-Iran relationship.
10:37It made it very clear that the security establishment within Iran was willing to act quite recklessly
10:42and that the relationship no longer had many of the same checks and balances
10:47that it may have had only five or six years previously.
10:51Despite this, just a month later, the British government was dealing with Iran behind closed doors.
10:59The Iranians contacted the Home Office.
11:02They wanted Abbas Yazdi's records, seized four years earlier in the Norwegian investigation.
11:11The Home Office gets many requests from all over the world
11:14for help in fighting crime and bringing people to justice.
11:18But this request from Iran came at a time when moderates and reformists,
11:23like former President Rafsanjani, were criticising the hardline government.
11:29And it was looking for evidence of corruption linked to his family.
11:36The Home Office referred Iran's request to the Serious Fraud Office,
11:41who began sending Mr Yazdi's documents to Iran, crucially without warning him.
11:46Those decisions are now being questioned.
11:50I think Mr Yazdi's case shines a light on a very murky area of British justice.
11:55We seem to have had a request for assistance given to the Home Office,
11:59who then handed it over to the Serious Fraud Office,
12:01who say it's not for them to think one way or the other,
12:04it's just for them to open their filing cabinets and hand over the materials.
12:11The SFO letter is showing that they passed all the materials
12:16from Abbas's computer to Iranian side.
12:21Images taken from...
12:23Image taken from Dell Dimension, that's his computer.
12:26Later, Atayna Yazdi would discover just how many of her husband's records
12:31the SFO sent to Iran.
12:33It's a lot.
12:34So it looks like that's five hard drive images.
12:37Yes.
12:39And do we know how many documents?
12:42As I know, it was over 20,000 pages.
12:46And the documents were sent in several batches over a five-year period.
12:53Some might say, you know, it was right that his documents came out.
12:56That's the kind of murky world he inhabited.
12:58Yes, but it's not the kind of murky world that we inhabit.
13:00And the fact that Mr Yazdi may or may not have been involved in corruption
13:04would provide, in my view, no justification whatsoever
13:08for the British cooperating with a foreign law enforcement agency
13:15that has no respect for the rule of law
13:17and which probably was acting out of political motivation.
13:21Abbas Yazdi soon heard rumours from Iran.
13:24His documents were being used to investigate him
13:27over the disputed Crescent deal.
13:29He found that his information is passing to Iran.
13:33And he thought it's from Norwegian.
13:36So he tried to warn them that he's worried for his life
13:41and other people's life.
13:45Mr Yazdi contacted his Norwegian lawyer again
13:49to find out if fraud investigators here had passed his private records to Iran.
13:54Mr Schatz realised just how high the stakes were.
13:58He was afraid of being attacked.
14:01He was afraid of being hurt.
14:03He was afraid Russians were being killed.
14:05He said that to you?
14:07Yes. Oh, yes. He was afraid of his life.
14:09The Norwegian fraud investigators confirmed
14:12they had not given Iran any of Mr Yazdi's sensitive documents seized in London.
14:19But the UK authorities were dealing with Iran.
14:23A British lawyer instructed by the Iranians
14:26met serious fraud office officials
14:29to discuss what Iran had told them
14:31was an investigation involving serious crime.
14:34The SFO trawled through Mr Yazdi's records
14:39for information about his international business dealings.
14:43All his computers record, all the documents.
14:46It was continuing.
14:48Every time they could collect something,
14:51they would pass it to Iran.
14:54The serious fraud office even allowed an Iranian judge
14:58to sift through Mr Yazdi's documents in their offices.
15:02Foreign officials can be given access to the SFO for research
15:06before making a formal request for material.
15:09But this visit has raised some eyebrows.
15:12I don't recall when I was DPP
15:14having meetings with an Iranian official in my office.
15:17But I would hope that in conducting those sorts of meetings,
15:20British law enforcement officials would be extremely circumspect
15:24with representatives of a state like Iran.
15:28Mr Ahmadinejad was re-elected in 2009.
15:33Opposition protests were brutally put down.
15:36There were show trials and executions,
15:39overseen by a judiciary firmly in the grip of the hardliners.
15:45I think the events of 2009
15:48finally persuaded many countries in the West
15:51that this was an out-and-out repressive government
15:54that really was unwilling to compromise
15:57even with its own internal dissidents.
16:00But even after the British embassy in Tehran was attacked in 2011
16:05and diplomatic staff recalled,
16:07the secret flow of Mr Yazdi's documents continued.
16:12At the time, the UK didn't have any relationship with Iran.
16:16They even closed the embassies.
16:19But under the table, they did these things.
16:23Abbas Yazdi would never have discovered
16:26the British were passing his documents to Iran.
16:30But for that long-running but obscure case
16:33over the disputed Crescent gas deal.
16:36After eight years of legal wrangling,
16:38the Iranians suddenly produced copies of some of Mr Yazdi's documents.
16:44He was very, very upset.
16:46He was shocked.
16:48He came home and he was almost shouting
16:51and he said, how could they do that?
16:53They passed even the information about kids' school,
16:57the family car and everything.
17:00In London, lawyers for Crescent wrote to the SFO
17:03warning of the dangers of passing information to Iran.
17:07But they couldn't get any information.
17:10According to an SFO letter we've seen,
17:13at this critical moment,
17:15they sent another batch of Mr Yazdi's records to Iran
17:19after they'd been warned of the dangers.
17:22They seemed to be kind of falling over themselves
17:26and, as helpful as possible, indeed handing over, on the face of it,
17:30more documents than the Iranians were even asking for.
17:33So it did seem like a very kind of cosy relationship
17:36seemed to have developed.
17:39The SFO even sent a copy of Mr Yazdi's computer contacts book to Iran.
17:45I know two people are missing and two are in prison
17:50related to information SFO passed to Iran.
17:56Crescent now instructed legal heavyweight Ken MacDonald
18:00to intervene on Mr Yazdi's behalf.
18:03So what happened when you contacted the Sirius Ford office?
18:06It was clear from what the SFO told me
18:09that the Home Office had sanctioned this
18:12and that this had been done at the request of the Home Office
18:16and I also understood that this had been going on for some time.
18:22Ken MacDonald wasn't satisfied and kept warning of the dangers.
18:31In Iran, last year's presidential election campaign was now underway.
18:36Moderates were challenging the hardliners.
18:40It was a very fragile moment.
18:42No one knew quite who was up and who was down.
18:45So I think the Rafsanjani family's position within Iranian politics
18:50was highly unstable at this time.
18:53For hardliners alleging Mehdi Rafsanjani to be corrupt,
18:57Abbas Yazdi's documents on their past dealings may have been key.
19:02They couldn't prove many accusations against Mehdi
19:06so they needed this information I think because of that again.
19:12Back in England, Ken MacDonald was now urgently seeking a meeting
19:16with the Home Secretary, Theresa May.
19:19He stressed Mr Yazdi was in danger.
19:23Did you get an answer at all from the Home Secretary herself
19:26at the top of all of this? No, I didn't.
19:28And how do you feel about that?
19:30Well, obviously I was hoping to see the Home Secretary.
19:33I thought this was a serious case, a serious issue.
19:36She's a very busy woman and perhaps was too busy,
19:39but I was hoping to have a conversation with her
19:42and unfortunately that didn't happen.
19:45In Dubai, on the very day Ken MacDonald was chasing the Home Secretary,
19:50Abbas Yazdi was driving to an office block.
19:54He'd decided to give evidence by video link
19:57in the Crescent case to clear his name.
20:01The Iranians were using Mr Yazdi's documents
20:04to allege corruption in the deal.
20:06He and Crescent both denied it.
20:09I must leave the premises at a certain time.
20:11It's a security concern of mine.
20:13After three hours, Mr Yazdi insisted he must leave.
20:16He was clearly concerned for his safety.
20:18I've been subject to numerous threats.
20:22He got a warning from Iran,
20:24from his well-connected friends in Iran.
20:27They are preparing to come and kidnap you.
20:31He thought he has time to prepare, to arrange everything
20:35and go out of Dubai.
20:38We've discovered that a flat had been rented
20:41several months before in Deira, Dubai's Iranian quarter.
20:46It was used as a base for members of Iran's intelligence services
20:50to spy on Mr Yazdi.
20:54The day after he gave his testimony,
20:57three men set out from Deira towards his office.
21:02Mr Yazdi had gone there as normal.
21:05He was preparing to give more evidence the next day.
21:10Everything here is just as it was.
21:16As the kidnappers closed in, Mr Yazdi phoned his wife.
21:20He said, I'm very tired, I'm coming home.
21:23He wanted to be relaxed at home and to get ready and prepared
21:27for Wednesday, the rest of testimony.
21:31Abbas Yazdi used the back stairs from his office
21:34to reach the underground car park.
21:37The three men were waiting in the shadows.
21:45They bundled Mr Yazdi into his own car
21:48and drove up the ramp and out into the evening rush hour traffic.
21:52The car was registered passing through a motorway toll gate
21:55heading to Sharjah, the port adjacent to Dubai.
22:00There, Mr Yazdi was put into another vehicle,
22:03his car abandoned.
22:07Both his mobile phones, they were switched off.
22:10I tried again and again.
22:12I tried again and again.
22:14I tried again and again.
22:16I tried again and again.
22:19I tried again and again.
22:21I tried again and again.
22:23I tried again and again.
22:25I tried again and again.
22:27I tried again and again.
22:29I tried again and again.
22:31I tried again and again.
22:33I was getting worried.
22:35Mrs Yazdi alerted the Dubai security services.
22:40It was a terrible night.
22:42Whole night, I was on the phone.
22:44Just before dawn, a witness saw Mr Yazdi
22:47as Mrs Yazdi had warned Dubai's authorities.
22:51I said, these people, I believe they kidnapped him
22:55and they're going to take him to Iran.
22:58As the Dubai police began to investigate,
23:01Ken McDonald heard back from the Home Office.
23:04The decision to send the documents had been sanctioned at the top
23:08by a minister.
23:10The ministerial decision was that the Iranians were engaged
23:13in a legitimate criminal investigation,
23:16that there were no human rights implications
23:19in sending information about Mr Yazdi
23:22to that particular law enforcement agency.
23:25It wasn't a reason that I regarded as being supportable or defensible,
23:29but that was the reason.
23:31Two months later, British police told Atayna Yazdi
23:35the Foreign Office had new information.
23:38The officer said,
23:40we believe your husband has been killed during the abduction.
23:46I asked, do you have any more information, any proof, any evidence?
23:52And he said, no.
23:54That's the only thing we have.
23:57There's been no further news about Mr Yazdi.
24:02His wife, meanwhile, has discovered the most worrying piece of information
24:06the UK gave Iran.
24:08His office address in Dubai.
24:11This is the place they abducted Abbas from.
24:14So the British authorities gave the Iranians the actual address
24:17where they could find your husband?
24:19Exactly.
24:21That's terrible.
24:24Last month, the Dubai security services arrested three Iranians,
24:29caught trying to dispose of Mr Yazdi's wallet,
24:32credit cards and passport.
24:34But then, another bizarre twist.
24:38It's now emerged that a few days after the Dubai police
24:41arrested the three Iranians, the leader of the gang,
24:45a man who apparently worked for Iran's intelligence agencies,
24:49was found dead in custody.
24:53We were hopeful that they have the main guy
24:56and they can ask him and find out what happened to Abbas.
25:01It was so bad, they had the main person,
25:05the main key, and they couldn't use it.
25:09Mr Yazdi was seized a few days after a new, more moderate president
25:14was elected in Iran, but before he took office.
25:20So was the kidnap a last throw of the dice
25:24by hardliners seeking to damage their enemies?
25:28If they hadn't found what they were looking for in Mr Yazdi's documents,
25:32did they seize him to force a confession out of him?
25:38There are three sets of investigators still trying to find out
25:41what happened to Abbas Yazdi.
25:43The Dubai police, officers from Scotland Yard
25:46and a team sent by the new Iranian government.
25:49But the question remains,
25:51what responsibility should the UK authorities bear
25:54for the disappearance of Mr Yazdi?
25:57I do blame SFO and ISIS.
26:01I do blame SFO and I do blame UK government.
26:05They put Abbas and many other people's life in danger.
26:10And now I urge them to stand up
26:14and to find out what happened and to save him.
26:19We can't get answers to the serious questions
26:22raised by Mr Yazdi's case.
26:24The SFO told Panorama they would not comment
26:27and referred us to the Home Office.
26:30The FBI didn't respond
26:32and the Home Office said they couldn't confirm or deny
26:35requests for legal assistance from abroad.
26:38I don't think it's any good for them to stonewall.
26:41That's a ludicrous position,
26:43with respect for the Home Office to be adopting.
26:46They really need to provide an explanation
26:49about what they were doing and why they were doing it.
26:53I think that this is sufficiently serious
26:56for the Home Secretary to direct her personal attention to it.
27:00Questions are now being asked in Parliament.
27:03When I ask questions, I'm not getting answers.
27:06We're talking about the well-being, the welfare,
27:08the safety of a British citizen.
27:10Someone somewhere should be saying to us,
27:13I made this decision because...
27:15There should be some sort of accountability.
27:21The new Iranian government says
27:23it's concerned about what's happened to Mr Yazdi,
27:26but they wouldn't speak to us.
27:29So will his family ever discover the truth?
27:34I won't give up until I find out what happened exactly
27:38and where Abbas is.
27:42Whatever time it takes, I won't give up.
27:45To tackle crime,
27:47the British government sometimes has to deal with unsavoury regimes.
27:51The question raised by Abbas Yazdi's story is,
27:54should they still do so when it puts someone's life at risk?
28:03Three years after we first started filming
28:05people living rough in the city,
28:07braving the elements hasn't got any easier,
28:09certainly not at Christmas.
28:11Swansea return to the streets tonight at 10.40.