LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Congressional investigators are examining the mysterious death in London last year of an Iranian weapons dealer who tried to participate in the Reagan administration’s arms sales to Iran, a newspaper reported today.

The Los Angeles Times quoted unidentified sources in Washington and London as saying a Senate investigator has made two trips to England to inquire about the death of Cyrus Hashemi.

The 47-year-old Hashemi died on July 21, three months before the U.S. arms- for-hostages deal with Iran was disclosed. The death was officially attributed to a rare and virulent form of leukemia diagnosed only two days before Hashemi died.

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A U.S. government informant who worked with the arms dealer said that Customs Service officials told him Hashemi may have been ″bumped off″ to protect the secrecy of the Iran initiative, the Times’ sources said.

Hashemi’s relatives suspect foul play.

″Medically, we had no reason whatsoever before he is dead to believe that there was anything wrong with him. Absolutely nothing,″ said Hashemi’s brother, Mohammed Ali Hashemi. ″A person has been killed.″

An unidentified source on the committee investigating the arms deals said, ″Given all the circumstances, we’d be ignoring our responsibility if we didn’t follow up what is, at the very least, a mysterious death.″

Hashemi had sought to broker a deal between Iran and the United States, the role that eventually went to other arms financiers, Manucher Ghorbanifar and Adnan Khashoggi. Hashemi had introduced the two men.

At the time of his death, Hashemi was acting as a confidential U.S. Customs informant in a $2.5 billion sting operation that led to the arrests of a retired Israeli general and two Khashoggi business associates.

The trial has been delayed by subsequent disclosures that the White House was shipping the same type of weapons to Iran that the businessmen were accused of trying to sell. The trial is scheduled for October in New York.