Here is some evidence to back up Ahmadinejad’s claim, which I posted about here several days ago, that he was not the hostage taker in the infamous photo. But again, as I posted at the same place on July 1, it doesn’t really matter if he was in the photo or not. What matters is whether he approves of the 1979 hostage caper, or thinks of it as a criminal act. There is no evidence at this point that his non-involvement, if he was indeed not involved, was motivated by any disapproval of the action itself.
So was he the guy in the picture or not? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he thinks the hostage takers who are in the picture are heroes.
From the LA Times, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
WASHINGTON “” U.S. investigators have concluded that Iranian president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not the glowering Islamic militant seen escorting an American hostage in a 1979 photograph that was widely publicized this week, officials said Friday.
The conclusion casts doubt on what had been considered a key piece of evidence indicating that Iran’s new president was among the leaders of the group of students who seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and went on to hold dozens of Americans hostage for 444 days.
A U.S. official familiar with the investigation of Ahmadinejad’s role said that analysts had found “serious discrepancies” between the figure in the 1979 photo and other images of the Iranian president-elect. The discrepancies included differences in facial structure and features, the official said.
If there is a case to be made that Ahmadinejad was among the hostage takers in 1979, the official said, “it doesn’t look as if it will be done on the basis of those photographs.”
The official stressed that the investigation was continuing and that it was “still an open question” whether Ahmadinejad was involved in the hostage crisis. Analysis of the photos was just one of many avenues in what has become a multi-agency inquiry, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.