'It's much easier for them to create a spy than catch a spy'
Lives Less Ordinary
BBC
4.6 • 814 Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Anoosheh Ashoori was visiting Iran when he was snatched off the street by security forces. He was falsely accused of espionage, and spent years in one of the country's toughest prisons.
For a long time, he didn't know why he'd been targeted. Anoosheh was a British-Iranian dual national, but he'd worked a career as an engineer, and had no links to intelligence services. Gradually, as his incarceration wore on, he realised he'd become a pawn in a game of global politics.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producer: Harry Graham Editor: Andrea Kennedy
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation. |
| 0:06.9 | It was an extraordinary news story. |
| 0:09.1 | The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny, |
| 0:13.7 | mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared. |
| 0:18.0 | One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. |
| 0:20.7 | We're still looking for Lucan. |
| 0:22.1 | It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime. |
| 0:25.9 | I'm Alex von Tundselman. |
| 0:27.3 | This is The Lucan Obsession. |
| 0:29.2 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.5 | When you are here with a heavy sentence on you, |
| 0:40.3 | it is as if you have died, but you are not completely detached from this world. |
| 0:43.3 | This is the voice of Anusha Ashuri, speaking from inside prison in Iran. |
| 0:48.8 | He's been jailed for espionage, charges that were unfounded and untrue. |
| 0:53.3 | This place is sometimes called the land of the living dead, with many walking aimlessly |
| 1:00.1 | back and forth, day after day, months after month and year after year, continuously asking |
| 1:06.7 | themselves, what have I done to deserve this? |
| 1:14.1 | He's not sure how long he'll be locked up, but hope keeps him alive. That same hope also |
| 1:20.4 | makes him vulnerable to disappointment and the crushing lows that come with it. He finds |
| 1:25.7 | ways to cope, art, poetry and the rich intellect of fellow |
| 1:29.8 | prisoners. But every year that passes is another year spent apart from the family he loves so dearly. |
| 1:38.0 | I only live with the memories of my wife, my kids. By the time I am out, not of this circle of hands, after 10 years, |
... |
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