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Wife Plans Iran Trip to Find Missing Husband (Iran)
Fox.Com ^ | August 3, 2007 | AP

Posted on 08/03/2007 8:12:12 AM PDT by RDTF

NEW YORK — Christine Levinson's husband vanished while on a business trip to Iran. Five months later, she's going there to try to bring him back.

The mother of the couple's seven children is planning her own trip to Iran in search of husband Robert Levinson even though she's been advised by the State Department not to travel to Iran because of the risk.

"I am positive he is alive," Christine Levinson told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday from her home in Coral Springs, Fla. "If he were hospitalized or had been killed, we would have known by now."

The 6-foot-4 burly Levinson was last seen March 8 on Kish Island, a resort off the southern coast of Iran, where he had gone to seek information on cigarette smuggling for a client of his security firm.

His wife believes he remains in Iran because his name has not shown up on any flight manifests of planes leaving the country and his passport has not been used anywhere.

The Iranian government has denied any knowledge of Levinson despite repeated requests on his whereabouts by the State Department through Swiss intermediaries.

The Swiss Embassy in Iran agreed to pass along the requests because the United States and Iran do not have formal diplomatic ties.

State Department officials have cast doubt on Iran's claims that it knows nothing.

"We find it incredibly hard to believe their claims given the nature of their society and how they track people in their country," Tom Casey, deputy State Department spokesman, told the AP on Thursday.

Levinson last heard from her husband on March 8 just before he boarded a flight from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to Iran's Kish Island.

-snip-

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 1980; 1998; 200703; 20070308; 20070309; aliakbartabatabai; alitabatabai; christinelevinson; cigarettesmuggling; iran; iraniancoast; kishisland; levinson; mikhailov; missing; robertlevinson; russianmafia; tabatabai

1 posted on 08/03/2007 8:12:13 AM PDT by RDTF
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To: RDTF

“The 6-foot-4 burly Levinson was last seen March 8 on Kish Island, a resort off the southern coast of Iran, where he had gone to seek information on cigarette smuggling for a client of his security firm.”

Doesn’t bode well.


2 posted on 08/03/2007 8:23:06 AM PDT by Rennes Templar ("The future ain't what it used to be".........Yogi Berra)
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To: RDTF

Whatever the wisdom of this, and the chances of success.... God bless her.


3 posted on 08/03/2007 8:26:27 AM PDT by squidly
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To: RDTF

I appreciate her grit but what happens to her seven children if she doesn’t come back?


4 posted on 08/03/2007 8:26:39 AM PDT by pgyanke (Duncan Hunter 08--You want to elect a conservative? Then support a conservative!)
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To: RDTF

Her husband was traveling to Iran to gather information on cigarette smuggling?

No shortage of suspects in his disappearance.

I understand her passion in wanting to search for her husband personally, however she would be better served in hiring somebody who could operate in that country to do so. In taking her oldest son with her, she is seriously risking leaving her six other children as orphans.


5 posted on 08/03/2007 8:27:53 AM PDT by PBRSTREETGANG (Apparently my former party considers me an "ugly nativist".)
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To: RDTF

First we have daddy who didn’t put his children first. Now we have mama doing the same. So much for family values.


6 posted on 08/03/2007 9:00:27 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn (I think the border is kind of an artificial barrier - San Antonio councilwoman Patti Radle)
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To: RDTF

She won’t find her husband but she’ll join him ... he’s not alive.


7 posted on 08/03/2007 1:16:15 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: pgyanke

“I appreciate her grit but what happens to her seven children if she doesn’t come back?”

Obviously that’s not important to her.


8 posted on 08/03/2007 1:16:58 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: PBRSTREETGANG
Yup ... she’ll stand out like a sore thumb.

VERY STUPID.

She needs to hire someone who can mingle and find things out. She won’t learn anything. They don’t exactly exalt women over there ... very stupid woman.

9 posted on 08/03/2007 1:18:46 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: nmh
he’s not alive.

Because she's not heard from him, he's still alive? How about if he met with some folks whoo bound him, gagged him, boated him out to sea and fed him to the fishes. I highly doubt they'd be telling anyone of it.

10 posted on 08/03/2007 1:25:04 PM PDT by Malsua
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To: nmh

Sure it’s obviously not the best idea. But stupid? Glad you have first hand experience and are qualified to call the woman stupid. It’s insensitive attacks like that that make us look bad here.


11 posted on 08/03/2007 1:38:43 PM PDT by RDTF (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, but Democrats believe every day is April 15th. - Reagan)
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To: Malsua
“Because she’s not heard from him, he’s still alive? How about if he met with some folks whoo bound him, gagged him, boated him out to sea and fed him to the fishes. I highly doubt they’d be telling anyone of it.”

Any scenario is possible ... he’s dead ... but the bottom line a WOMAN from here isn’t going to find out what happened.

12 posted on 08/03/2007 2:30:32 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: RDTF
“Sure it’s obviously not the best idea. But stupid? Glad you have first hand experience and are qualified to call the woman stupid. It’s insensitive attacks like that that make us look bad here.”

I simply have common sense. She is STUPID. Women are not treated well over there and an aggressive AMERICAN WOMAN - LOL!!! She’s just lining herself up for the same fate of her husband - DEAD - or possibly a video of her own beheading. She’s not only stupid, she’s unrealistic.

13 posted on 08/03/2007 2:32:33 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: mtbopfuyn

Kinda cold, but perfectly accurate.


14 posted on 08/03/2007 2:34:53 PM PDT by Mr. Lucky
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To: RDTF

How is a woman going to ask questions in Iran? In the traditionalist areas of Iran women are told to shut up. They can not talk to men.


15 posted on 08/03/2007 2:40:18 PM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* 'I love you guys')
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To: Steve Van Doorn; RDTF
“How is a woman going to ask questions in Iran? In the traditionalist areas of Iran women are told to shut up. They can not talk to men.”

You won’t get through ... stupid people defend other stupid people. Common sense is increasingly in short supply. Her emotions are controlling her; not common sense.

16 posted on 08/03/2007 2:52:54 PM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God) .)
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To: RDTF
She is stupid.
That is a factually correct characterization, not an “insensitive attack”.

I feel very sorry for her, and her family. Prayers for her husband are sent. I sincerely hope the man is found alive, and returned.
I did not know her husband, but it would seem unlikely that he would approve of her intentions in this instance, given his background.
Had the man disappeared in another of any number of foreign countries, this investigation/rescue attempt would be rational, and perhaps even productive.
Any USA citizen who decides to go to Iran at this time is most likely correctly identified as stupid.(Always excepting any armed military incursions)

BTW. IMHO, it is overly PC statements such as yours that
make certain posters here look "bad" or at the very least ignorant.Perhaps you forgot a sarcasm tag?.

17 posted on 08/03/2007 4:52:31 PM PDT by sarasmom (Hunter-Thompson 2008 . It satisfies the senses on multidimensional levels .)
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To: nmh

now you’re calling ME stupid? You are revealing yourself as a jerk.


18 posted on 08/04/2007 6:53:11 AM PDT by RDTF (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, but Democrats believe every day is April 15th. - Reagan)
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To: sarasmom

nope.


19 posted on 08/04/2007 6:53:49 AM PDT by RDTF (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, but Democrats believe every day is April 15th. - Reagan)
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