Reminds me a bit of my Romanian friend Mircea’s escape from Ceaucescu’s regime:
After three days on the run, Ahmad Batebi picked his way down a rocky slope to the stream that marked Iran’s border with Iraq. His Kurdish guides, who had led Mr. Batebi, an Iranian dissident, through minefields and dodged nighttime gunfire from border guards, passed him to a new team of shadowy human smugglers.
A photograph of Mr. Batebi in 1999 holding a protester’s bloody shirt altered the course of his life.
At the age of 31, after nearly eight years in Iranian prisons, subjected to torture and twice taken to the gallows and fitted with a noose, Mr. Batebi had fled.
But in Iraq, his former captors had one more chilling message for him. Not long after his arrival in Erbil in March, the new cellphone provided by United Nations officials rang. Mr. Batebi was shocked to hear the familiar voice of the chief interrogator at one of Iran’s notorious prisons.
I’m thrilled for the guy that he’s here, but I have to ask: how does an Iranian secret service agent discover the number of his UN-supplied cell phone? Hmmmmmm?
That’s a rhetorical question, right?
Yeah. But, you know, one that might merit some investigation.
Hahahahahaha! I keed!
“A photograph of Mr. Batebi in 1999 holding a protester’s bloody shirt altered the course of his life.”
A 1979 embassy takeover altered Imadinnerjacket’s life.
*snork*
So who’s going to help these people escape the mullahs?
UN “Official”: Batebi! You apostate goat. How did you get out!?
Batebi: I banged your daughter. She broke me out and her contacts got me to the free shia in Iraq. She is butt naked, waiting for me in my new Baghdad, split-level apartment right now. I’ve got the new Grand Theft Auto bitch!
UN “Official”: Infidel swine!
Batebi: Hold on…There’s a large American Marine here who wishes to talk to you.
….(dial tone)….
how does an Iranian secret service agent discover the number of his UN-supplied cell phone?
Well I see three options.
1) Wrong number, an incredible coincidence
2) The Iranian secret police are an unbelievable force of investigation
3) Some UN stooge handed Iran the number.
I’m leaning toward 3, to be honest.
4) The ISP guy is on the Wests payrole, which a little birdie tells me is the door Dan is choosing.
“I have to ask: how does an Iranian secret service agent discover the number of his UN-supplied cell phone?”
Does the NYT have a Teheran bureau?