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Not only was Makan not Neda’s fiance when she died, they were not even romantically linked anymore. Neda left him after a row they had and Caspian was allegedly seeing another girl, with whom he was spotted attending one of the post-election protest marches. This would explain his absence during Neda’s final moments. And there were never any helicopter-mounted shooters.

Makan’s Narcissus complex is clear from the photographs of himself that he posts on Facebook, wearing elaborate suits and ties, driving a Mercedes, or Karate Kid-like in martial arts poses. When I asked him to sit in front of his unpacked suitcases for our interview (to visually convey his recent arrival from Iran and state of transit), he wrinkled his nose and demanded the BBC fly him to London “where I can wear a suit and we can do the interview properly in a studio.” When I told him that the cameraman was a local from Ankara and had not flown out from the U.K., he looked thunderstruck with disappointment.

As it was, the Islamic Republic put him through a few sessions of interrogation, realized he was a harmless self-promoter, and released him a few weeks later. Makan described his time in jail as so traumatic he often considered slitting his wrists, wrapping himself in a blanket and bleeding to death. Given that, by his own admission, the interrogators plied him with sweets and fruit, his reaction appears mildly exaggerated.

Once out of jail, he tried to go back to normal ... >>>