Amiram Nir, the Israeli who allegedly set up the sale of U.S. arms to Iran and arranged diversion of the proceeds to the Nicaraguan rebels known as Contras, was fired Friday as Premier Yitzhak Shamir’s advisor on counter-terrorism, Israel Radio reported.
According to Israel Radio, his dismissal and that of several other officials was part of an agreement signed when Shamir took over the office of Premier under the Labor-Likud rotation of power agreement last October. The Iran-Contra arms sales scandal broke the following month.
U.S. reports said Nir travelled to Teheran to arrange for the sale of American-manufactured arms to Iran. Lt. Col. Oliver North, the former aide to then National Security Adviser Adm. John Poindexter, testified before the Senate-House joint committee last spring that Nir initiated the transfer of funds from the arms sale to the Contras.
Yaacov Nimrodi, an Israeli middleman fired by Nir before the transaction was completed, told the newspaper Hadashot that Nir was responsible for the “botch-ups” that thwarted the purported purpose of the arms deal–release of hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
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