Video of the kidnapped academic released: ‘I am a CIA and Mossad agent’
Video has been released of Elizabeth Tsurkov, an academic with dual Israeli-Russian citizenship who was kidnapped in March by the Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Kataib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Battalions) in Iraq.
It was revealed that Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University, was kidnapped in Baghdad, where he went to study for his doctorate on a Russian passport. As the Iraqi government launched an investigation into the incident, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the United States was making efforts to free Tsurkov.
The 36-year-old academic, who had not been heard from for months and was rumored to have been murdered, appeared in a newly released video. Tsurkov, who was taken hostage, says in the video that he works for the Israeli intelligence service Mossad and the CIA, and that he is responsible for provoking protests and violence in Iraq.
Tsurkov, an internationally known Middle Eastern academic, was someone who gave statements to many famous media outlets before being kidnapped.
Tsurkov, who spoke Hebrew in the video posted on Telegram, is believed to have been forced to say he was a spy.
His family had previously stated that efforts to free Tsurkov were insufficient.
Mehdi Engineer, leader of the Hezbollah battalions, considered a terrorist organization in the United States, was killed in an airstrike carried out by the United States in Iraq in 2020, along with the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani .