The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps retracted its confirmation of the killing of the military attaché, Ahmad Motevaselian, who disappeared in Beirut 41 years ago.
IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif said they still have no reliable information regarding the condition and fate of Motevaselian and his companions, who were kidnapped in northern Lebanon in 1982.
Last Saturday, the head of the IRGC, Hossein Salami, visited the Motevaselian family. After the visit, many news outlets published excerpts from the statement, saying it was an official confirmation of the commander's fate.
However, Sharif asserted on Monday that certain media misunderstood his remarks.
The spokesman pointed out that the case of the four Iranians kidnapped by the Lebanese Forces at the Barbara checkpoint on July 4, 1982, remains open and is being followed up legally.
Motevaselian was accompanied by Kazem Akhavan, a military affairs correspondent for the official news agency (IRNA), and Taghi Rastegar Moghaddam, IRGC training supervisor, and consul Mohsen Mosavi.
Sharif said Salami described Motevaselian as a "martyr with a trace," the term for missing soldiers.
The case of Motevaselian, the most prominent IRGC field commander during the early years of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, is one of the open issues in relations between Iran and Lebanon.
Iranian authorities insist on naming the abducted "the four diplomats" without identifying the nature of Motevaselian's duties in Beirut during that period.
The Sabreen News channel, affiliated with the IRGC’s Quds Force, stated that several bodies were exchanged years ago with the Lebanese Forces, noting that Motevaselian's body was handed over to Iran. However, DNA tests did not match that of the missing commander.
Before Sharif's statement, the IRGC-affiliated Sobheno newspaper wrote in its editorial on Monday that Motevaselian's case was abandoned because of the mismanagement and incompetence of the diplomatic missions at the time. His death was confirmed 41 years after he went missing.
The newspaper saw that the confirmation of Motavasslian's death ended all speculation, rumors, and theories about his fate.
Sazandegi newspaper reported that slain commander of the Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, had previously revealed that the four officials "were killed on the night of their kidnapping."
The newspaper also cited the account slain Elie Hobeika's bodyguard Robert Hatem, known as Cobra, who was then in charge of the Barbara checkpoint. Hatem said he pointed his gun at the head of one of the four Iranians and killed him after he got out of his car.
In 1999, Hatem wrote in his memoirs that the four diplomats were all shot dead and buried in the Karantina area in eastern Beirut, in the basements of the security building of the Lebanese Forces led by Hobeika.
Motevaselian was the commander of the 27th Brigade, one of IRGC's most prominent field units, which fought fierce battles against the Kurdish opposition before he was dispatched to Beirut to train Hezbollah forces during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.
