By Afshin Valinejad
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 6, 2000; 6:28 p.m. EDT

TEHRAN, Iran –– An Iranian defector fabricated claims that Iran was involved in two deadly anti-American terrorist attacks in order to gain asylum in the West, Iran's intelligence minister was reported as saying Tuesday.

Ali Yunesi also denied that the defector's claim that he had once worked for Iran's secret service.

The defector, who identified himself as Ahmad Behbahani, told the CBS News program "60 Minutes" that he was an intelligence official involved in Iranian terrorism operations for more than a decade before his defection to Turkey. He is currently seeking asylum in the United States.

"Since the establishment of Iran's (intelligence) ministry, no person named Ahmad Behbahani has been working with the ministry," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Intelligence Minister Yunesi as saying.

Yunesi's predecessor, Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, also told Iranian radio he had never come across Behbahani during his tenure.

An Iranian dissident journalist who three weeks ago broke the news about Behbahani's defection said Monday that like other Iranian agents, the defector was known in the intelligence community in Iran as Abdollahi or Hosseini. Ali Reza Nourizadeh, who broke the story on his Web site and in the London-based Kayhan weekly, said Behbahani is probably using an assumed name now to hide his real identity from Iran.

Behbahani told "60 Minutes" he was the mastermind behind the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, but that claim appeared exaggerated after Turkey said the defector was only 32 – likely too young to have led such a complex operation.

But Behbahani, who did not appear on camera in the television interview, looked older in a published photo seen later, and CBS told The Associated Press the defector had said he was born in 1962. The Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iraq-based opposition group, claimed Behbahani was in his mid-40s.

Yunesi said that Behbahani's own statements cast doubt on his claims.

"The contradictory statements of this person prove the falseness of his claims since he claims to have been imprisoned in Iran in 1998 while claiming to be a top official with the Iranian (intelligence) ministry in the same period," IRNA quoted Yunesi as saying.

"Those Iranians who wish to be granted asylum in Western countries usually try to achieve their aims through libelous statements or slander against the Islamic Republic of Iran," Yunesi said.

Behbahani told CBS that he proposed the attack on Pan Am flight 103 that killed 270 people and that he brought on board a radical Palestinian terrorist living in Syria, then imported and trained Libyan operatives to do the job.

The program said his motive was to avenge a U.S. Navy cruiser's mistaken shooting down five months earlier of an Iranian passenger plane over the Gulf.

But Yunesi denied Iranian involvement in that or any other terrorist incident, saying "Iran opposes terrorism in any shape and form."

Two Libyan defendants are on trial in the Netherlands for the Dec. 21, 1988 Pan Am bombing, which killed all 259 persons aboard the plane and 11 more on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland. Law experts in the Netherlands said Behbahani's statements were unlikely to affect the outcome of the trial.

Behbahani also said Iran planned the 1996 bombing of a U.S. barracks in Saudi Arabia. The attack killed 19 U.S. Air Force personnel.

In Damascus, Ahmed Jibril, leader of the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, who has previously been suspected of involvement in the Pan Am bombing, also dismissed Behbahani's charges.

"These accusations are not new. Any time there is a need to exert new pressure on the Palestinian opposition, this roaming accusation is revived," a PFLP-GC statement quoted Jibril as saying.

In an interview with Iranian radio, Jibril said he doesn't know Behbahani.

"I believe that he is a mercenary and a traitor who has put himself at the disposal of the espionage agencies of the global arrogance to enable them to take advantage of him in pursuit of their own interests."

On Monday, a U.S. State Department official, who spoke on condition he not be named, expressed strong doubt about Behbahani's credibility. The official said he was not at liberty to discuss the reasons why.