He came, he saw and he decided New York looked pretty good — particularly in view of the dark future awaiting him back in Iran.
Hasaan Gol Khanban, a trusted cameraman who worked alongside nuke-loving, Israel-hating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, refused to return to Tehran last week and defected to the United States.
The videographer, who is in his 40s, “wasn’t in trouble,’’ at least not yet, his lawyer, Paul O’Dwyer, told The Post yesterday.
“But the regime had wanted him to do particular things, report on particular things, and he was not comfortable.
“He was concerned that he would be perceived as being disloyal” and that he would have been tortured or killed or seen his family taken away, O’Dwyer said.
“That’s very consistent with what’s been happening with the government there.”
Khanban expects to soon be reunited — in the United States — with his wife and two daughters, who slipped out of Iran last week.
The cameraman, who came to New York as part of Ahmadinejad’s 140-person delegation to the UN General Assembly, had worked with him for years.
But he split from the dictator’s posse just before they were scheduled to fly home and is now seeking political asylum here.
The defection is yet another blow to Ahmadinejad, who claims to be beloved by his people.
Already this year, three Iranian diplomats stationed in Europe have defected to the West.
O’Dwyer said his client came to the United States with the thought of defecting but without an action plan.
Members of the delegation were closely watched, but Khanban saw an opportunity on Thursday.
An hour before the Iranians checked out of The Warwick hotel, he said he wanted to pick up stuff for his kids at a drugstore, O’Dwyer said.
“I wouldn’t say he had it choreographed when he got here. But at the point at which he said, ‘I’m going to get pharmaceuticals,’ he knew he wasn’t going back.”
Khanban mapped out his plot as his companions attended official events and even took in some of the Big Apple’s sights last week.
At the same time, he was coordinating with his wife back in Iran. She left Tehran late last week with the couple’s two daughters — also planning never to return.
For their security, O’Dwyer refused to disclose even the continent they’re on.
“We’re in the process of trying to get them to the US now,” the lawyer said.
Khanban worked for the Iranian state news agency IRIB. Last week’s trip marked the second consecutive year he was assigned to the annual UN gathering.
The White House had no comment on the defection. A UN spokesman said it was an “issue between the respective governments.”
A UN source told The Post that defections during the UN General Assembly’s opening session have “happened before. This isn’t the first time.”