ABOVE: Amir Ardebili captured on
surveillance video in Tbilsi, Georgia

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Amir Hossein Ardebili, an Iranian national, engaged in extensive negotiations from Iran and apparently on behalf of the Iranian government to export defense items from the United States to Iran. The U.S. companies, however, were sting operations set up by U.S. undercover agents. When the agents lured Ardebili from Iran to Tbilsi, Georgia, they arrested him in October 2007 and, seemingly with the cooperation of Georgian authorities, brought him back to the United States where he was secretly imprisoned and held under a sealed indictment.

Ardebili has pleaded guilty to charges, among other things, that he violated the United States Arms Export Control Act. In preparation for his sentencing on December 14, some of the sealed documents, including a redacted version of the indictment have been unsealed. Prior to the unsealing, the identity of the city where Ardebili was snatched had been undisclosed but it’s now clear that, as had been rumored, Ardebili had traveled to Georgia to meet with the agents.

The government’s sentencing memorandum, in an effort to obtain the maximum term of imprisonment possible, provides further details of the undercover investigation. Significantly, the memo stresses that the Ardebili was engaged in procurement activities for his sole customer, the government of Iran, which was seeking the items because it believed it was going to go to war with the United States.

Ardebili’s attorney has filed a motion for a downward variance from the sentencing guidelines, arguing that the 22 months already served in solitary confinement caused Ardebili to become clinically depressed. The motion further noted that all of Ardebili’s activities were legal in Iran, where they took place, and that he was acting “indirectly on behalf of the Government of Iran.”

What are we to make of the fact here that the defendant was acting in Iran on behalf of the Iranian government and was later taken by U.S. agents from Georgia to stand trial in the United States? After the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655 (1992), abduction of defendants from foreign countries in order to bring them to the United States to stand trial is legal. The doctrine of functional sovereign immunity from prosecution for acts taken on behalf of foreign governments is basically confined to high officials of those countries. And the U.S. takes the controversial position that it has criminal jurisdiction over anyone located in foreign countries trying to export items from the United States.

Of course, if the shoe were on the other foot, if an American businessman had been abducted by Iranian agents from a hotel in, say, Russia and then secretly held in solitary confinement for two years in Iran, you can bet your you-know-what that we would be screaming bloody murder. I am not a fan of the Government of Iran or its nuclear aspirations, but we really have to understand that if we employ extraordinary means such as were employed here then we will have no cause to complain when those same methods are used against U.S. citizens abroad.

Here is some of the surveillance video of the meeting between the U.S. agents and Ardebili in Georgia:

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