Iran's former military chief, Hassan Firuzabadi, on Tuesday accused the Mossad and the CIA of using lizards to "attract atomic waves" as part of their efforts to spy on the Iranian nuclear program.
Firuzabadi, who headed the Iranian armed forces from 1989 to 2016 and is now a top military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also said Western nations had often used tourists, scientists and environmentalists to spy on Iran.
"Several years ago, some individuals came to Iran to collect aid for Palestine. … We were suspicious of the route they chose," he told the Iranian Labour News Agency.
They were carrying "a variety of reptile desert species like lizards, chameleons. … We found out that their skin attracts atomic waves and that they were nuclear spies who wanted to find out where inside the Islamic Republic of Iran we have uranium mines and where we are engaged in atomic activities," he said.
Firuzabadi's comments came amid reports that a dual Iranian-Canadian citizen who reportedly killed himself in custody had been sending information to the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday that Kavous Seyed-Emami, 63, a renowned professor and founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, had been in custody for passing information on Iranian missile bases to the CIA and Mossad and for planning to create an environmental crisis. The report did not elaborate.
IRNA quoted Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabdi as saying Seyed-Emami and a network of people had installed cameras in strategic areas of the country pretending to observe environmental issues, but in fact the cameras were"for monitoring the country's missile activities and they were sending images and information to foreigners."
Dolatabdi said Seyed-Emami hosted one of two U.S. intelligence officers during their visit to Iran. He did not elaborate.
On Monday, Iran said Seyed-Emami had committed suicide. His death has sparked an outcry among the country's academic and scientific communities.
According to Agence France-Presse, one of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation's key projects was monitoring the endangered Asian cheetah, which meant it operated across large swathes of Semnan province, home to military sites and missile-testing grounds.
