Iran Jails American as a CIA Spy : Says Communications Worker Confessed; 10-Year Term

Iran has sentenced American citizen John Pattis to 10 years in prison on charges of spying for the CIA, the official Iranian news agency said today.

The agency, IRNA, said Pattis was charged in an Islamic revolutionary court on seven counts.

He is believed to be the first American ever sentenced for espionage in Iran.

The agency said Pattis “entered Iran with a forged Italian passport under the name of Giovani Pattis after the (1979) revolution” which brought the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power.

Pattis, 50, was an engineer for Cosmos Engineers of Bethesda, Md., when he was arrested in 1986 and charged with espionage.

He was working at the Iranian state telecommunications center at Assadabad, 200 miles southwest of Tehran, shortly before the facility was bombed by Iraqi jets. Iranian authorities evidently suspected Pattis was involved in the bombing.

He “confessed” to some of the charges brought against him “in a television interview” about four months later, the news agency said.

Other charges against Pattis included gathering information on Iranian communications and satellite centers, gathering information on spare parts needed for military communications systems and communications projects in Iran and transferring this information to the CIA.

Iran also accused him of collecting for “the U.S. intelligence service” information on Iranian oil fields, oil installations and problems Iran faced “in these areas.”

Pattis’ sister, Ellen Pattis of Aiken, S.C., said she would take up his case with Iranian officials.

She said she is angry with the U.S. government for refusing to protest her brother’s arrest and for not taking steps to secure his freedom.

“They never were with us and we didn’t realize that,” she said. “I’m disillusioned.”