Former FBI agent Robert Levinson’s family said in a statement Wednesday that he had died while in detention in Iran.

“We have recently received information from US officials that both they and us have been persuaded that our husband and father, who was an astonishing human being, had died while in detention in Iran,” the statement said.

“No, I do not agree that he is dead … they did not tell us he was dead,” US President Donald Trump said after the statement.

The Levinson family wrote that they do not know when and how Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran, died, only to know that it was prior to the Covid-1 outbreak.