July 6, 2008

Contact: Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, 011.972.52.383.7020
media@israellawcenter.org

Families of 12 Missing Iranian Jews Make Final Plea to
Prime Minister Olmert for News About Their Loved Ones

The families of 12 missing Iranian Jews, believed to be imprisoned in
Teheran, have written a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to meet with
them prior to undertaking any steps in the pending deal with the Hizbollah
terrorist organization. The families will demand that Israel not release any
information concerning the fate of four missing Iranian officials to the
United Nations without receiving information on their disappeared loved ones
as well.

The 12 Jews were arrested in the 1990s as they sought to escape from Iran
across the border with Pakistan and they are believed to still be held in
Iranian prisons. The Iranian diplomats were captured by Christian militia
forces in South Lebanon in 1982 during the first Israeli-Lebanon War..

Among the missing Jews is Babak Teherani, the son of Los Angeles parents,
Ilana Cohen-Teherani and Yousef Shaouliian Teherani who is believed to have
been arrested in Iran 14 years ago while attempting to cross the border and
was spotted in a Tehran prison several years after his disappearance. Babak
was arrested near the Iran-Pakistan just prior to his attempt to escape, on
or around June 10, 1994 and was only 14 went he disappeared. A Muslim
neighbor from Teheran, who later joined the Teherani family in Los Angeles,
has testified that he saw the boy, and other of the 11 missing Jews, alive
and well in a dark and damp Teheran prison in 1996.

The urgent letter, sent to the Prime Minister by the Teherani familiy's
attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Shurat HaDin - Israel Law
Center human rights organization, demands that the Prime Minister not
authorize the transfer of information regarding the missing Iranian
diplomats until such time as reliable and detailed information is received
about the fate of all the missing Iranian Jews. The families have never
received any acknowledgment of their loved ones' arrests, status or
whereabouts from the Islamic regime.

The families wrote in the letter that their feeling of abandonment is deep
and they feel that their case has been pushed aside and forgotten by all,
including the government and Israeli public.

The letter to the PM argues that the government must honor the obligations
imposed upon it by the Israeli High Court approximately two years ago in a
prior petition brought by the Persian families that [the Israeli government]
"Push forward diligently without sparing any effort in order to gain
information about the [12 missing] Jews of Iran."

The families are insisting that there be a "quid pro quo" on information
about their family members in exchange for the release of the details on the
fate of the missing Iranians. According to Darshan-Leitner: "Saving the
lives of these missing Jews, still being held in Iranian prisons after years
of torture must be a central component of any deal with Hizbollah and Iran."

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