Family of missing FBI agent holds rally in Coral Springs

CORAL SPRINGS – Nine years ago, a retired FBI agent who lived in South Florida was on a CIA mission when he disappeared at Kish Island, in Iran.  His family was holding a rally in Coral Springs Saturday to demand a more aggressive effort to rescue him. 

About five years ago, a family member received an e-mail with photos of Robert "Bob" Levinson posing in an orange jumpsuit and holding signs protesting the detention of war on terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

FBI agents and his family met at 2 p.m. at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts, 2855 Coral Springs Dr. They believe the married father of seven -- who suffers from diabetes, gout and high blood pressure -- is still alive. A $5 million reward for information leading to his whereabouts remains in effect.

Levinson, 67, was working for the CIA on an unauthorized intelligence-gathering mission to glean information on Iran's nuclear program. 

The FBI says it remains committed to his case. U.S. officials believe the Iranian government was behind Levinson's disappearance, but he was not part of a prisoner swap that set free five Americans who were in Iran's custody earlier this year.

Retired FBI agent Ellen Glasser told several hundred people at the Saturday rally that the Obama administration should have pressed Iran to release him.

In February, Rep. Ted Deutch said a resolution pushing for his return passed in the House of Representatives' Middle East Subcommittee and was moving on to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has also been supportive of the family's efforts. 

As a symbolic gesture, the Coral Springs City Commission also passed a resolution in support of the family. 

In a breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from hotspots around the world, including the Middle East and Latin America, according to a 2013 Associated Press investigation.

The official story when Levinson disappeared was that he was in Iran on private business, either to investigate cigarette smuggling or to work on a book about Russian organized crime. It has a presence on Kish, a tourist island.

In fact, he was meeting a source, an American fugitive, Dawud Salahuddin. He is wanted for killing a former Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980. In interviews, Salahuddin has admitted killing the diplomat.

The CIA paid Levinson's family $2.5 million to pre-empt a revealing lawsuit, and the agency rewrote its rules restricting how analysts can work with outsiders. Three analysts who worked with Levinson lost their jobs.