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DATE=6/12/2000 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=U-S - IRAN DEFECTOR (L-ONLY) NUMBER=2-263404 BYLINE=DAVID SWAN DATELINE=WASHINGTON CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: U-S intelligence agencies have rejected the story told by an Iranian defector who said he ran terrorist operations for the Tehran government. Among other things, the man said he could show Iran was behind the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. V-O-A's David Swan reports. TEXT: Investigators have questioned the man who calls himself Ahmad Behbahani -- and have decided he is an impostor. The defector's real identity is apparently still unknown. But sources say he could not back up his claim to have been a high-level Iranian intelligence official who directed overseas terrorism for more than a decade. The man made those statements from a Turkish refugee camp, in an unrecorded interview with the C-B-S television program "60 Minutes." He said he had documentation to prove Iran carried out the Pan Am 103 attack in a joint operation with Libya 12 years ago. The defector said Iran was also responsible for the deadly bombing of a U-S military housing complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996. His charges brought immediate denials from Tehran and were met with skepticism by American and Turkish authorities. Officials say he would have been just 20 years old at the time of the Lockerbie bombing, and at that age was an unlikely terrorist mastermind. Had the defector's account been confirmed, it could have disrupted the trial of two Libyan men in the Pan Am case. It could also have seriously set back the U-S effort to improve ties with Iran.(Signed) Neb/ds/PW 12-Jun-2000 16:28 PM EDT (12-Jun-2000 2028 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .