Demand To Hold Mykonos Murder Trials in Tehran

Twenty years after the assassination of four Iranian Kurdish leaders in a Hamburg restaurant in Germany by agents of the Islamic republic of Iran, calls continue for a trial to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“I have a dream,” is how the German prosecuting attorney in the trial of the murder suspects for the victims of the case began his talk on the 20^th anniversary of the event. He said he hoped for the day when he could witness the trial in Tehran of the perpetrators of the crime that killed the four Kurds.

At the same ceremony held in Berlin, the daughter of assassinated Nouri Dehkordi, Sarah Dehkordi also spoke bitterly of the record of fact finding committees in general, yet called for the day when such committees would be held in Iran. In speaking with Rooz, Ms Dekhordi expressed satisfaction at the Mykonos trials held in Germany but at the same time called for clarifications and investigations on all cases related to assassination of Iranians outside Iran.

Hamid Nowzari, the observer from the Center for Iranian Political Refugees who participated in the Mykonos trials also told Rooz that he “hoped democracy would one day be attained in Iran so that the perpetrators of the massacres of political prisoner in 1988 in Iranian prisons would be brought to justice and thus inform the public of the details of these crimes.”

On the 20 anniversary of the assassinations, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan issued a statement in which it said, “State terrorism is not confined to the Islamic republic of Iran and the assassination of its opponents have never been an Iranian problem or a domestic problem of this country alone. These are global issues and international organizations and forums have a responsibility to address them.”

In a separate statement the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan also echoed these sentiments and wrote, “Today, while we commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the martyrdom of Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi and his colleagues and celebrate his leadership, our country faces vulnerable problems and crises, while the nuclear dossier still remains alive.” The leaders of the party gathered in front of the Mykonos restaurant on Saturday to honor their slain comrades.

The secretary general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan Sadegh Sharafkandi, along with party representatives in Europe and Germany Fattah Abdolali and Homayun Ardalan and a Red Cross staff who was also a political activist for Iranian immigrants in Germany Nouri Dehkordi were assassinated in September of 1992 while meeting in the Mykonos restaurant in Hamburg. All three were shot dead at their meeting.

The lawsuit known as the Mykonos assassinations was filed in a court in Germany and took 4 years to process. Finally in 1997, the court found Kazem Darabi who at the time of the assassination was a student and a member of the Association of Islamic Societies in Germany and Abbas Roheil a Lebanese citizen, to be accomplices in the assassination of the three Kurdish leaders and sentenced them to prison terms.

The German prosecutor announced Darabi to be a member of Iran’s ministry of intelligence and also that of the special Revolutionary Guards Corps forces and pronounced that that assassination of the Kurdish leaders had taken place on orders of security officials of the Islamic republic of Iran.

Because of the sentences, senior officials of the Islamic republic of Iran were found to be complicit in the murder of their opponents outside Iran and for the first time were condemned for state sponsored terrorism by the court.

The Iranian officials that were implicated in the trial were then President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, minister of intelligence Ali Fallahian, the minister of foreign affairs Ali Akbar Velayati and supreme leader Ali Khamenei all of whom were charged with laying the foundations for the assassinations. A few months later, Germany’s attorney general stressed on the role of these four senior leaders and officials of the Islamic republic.

But despite these, Kazem Darabi was released from prison on December 2007 after spending 15 years in a German prison and was immediately expelled from Germany.

Darabi’s premature release from prison was met with protests from the Democratic Party of Kurdistan of Iran and the families of the victims. There were rumors at the time that a deal had been struck between the Islamic republic and Germany for the release of Darabi, which the German attorney general denied.

On his return to Iran, Darabi told the press that his early release indicated his innocence.

More recently, Darabi told Fars news agency that he planned to write a book exposing the German judiciary.

Hamid Nowzari, the representative of the center for political immigrants in Berlin who was at the Mykonos trials talked about the status of the lawsuit to Rooz and said, “The lawsuit regarding Darabi, Rahel and Amin is closed as far as the German judiciary is concerned. But the lawsuit against Ali Fallahian, AbdolRahman Bani Hashemi (the commander of the assassination team), Asghar Arshad and Ali Kamali (a senior official of Iran’s intelligence agency and a member of the investigation team), and also the two Lebanese by the names of Farajollah Heydar (the driver of the team) and Ali Sabra (the person who arranged for the car) is still open. International warrants have been issued for all of them.” He added that should these criminals be brought before a German court, the families of the victims can sue them.

Speaking to Rooz, Sarah Dehkordi said, “We want the execution of the sentences against the perpetrators of the crime. But more importantly, we want all the assassinations conducted outside Iran to be investigated in a fair court.”

She continued, “While it is true that we lack a complete democratic system, but the judge and the prosecutor in the Mykonos trial bravely did their job. This court stood in front of the German government which did not want the court to proceed the way it did.  The judge was repeatedly put under pressure to close the case.” Sarah was only 9 years old when her father Nouri was assassinated and after a passage of 20 years calls for the establishment of fact finding committees for other similar cases.

Hans Hans -Joachim Ehrig, the German attorney in the private lawsuit against the assassins also spoke at the commemorative ceremony and said that as far as he was concerned the original lawsuit was not closed. He expressed hope that Ali Fallahian and the other accomplices in the case would one day face trial in Germany. In his speech, Ehrig also said, “I have a dream. I went to Iran once in 1968 when I was a student and saw Tehran. I hope the next time I go there it will be to see the trial of Ali Fallahian and the other perpetrators of the Mykonos assassinations.”

In addition to commemorating the Mykonos trials, the Committee for Iranian Political Refugees in Berlin also honored the massacre of political prisoners in Iran in the 1980s.

The last speaker at the commemorative ceremony for the political prisoners was Farkhondeh Taghadosi, a political prisoner form the 1980s. He spoke about the incarceration conditions in the Islamic republic and compared them to the Nazi concentration camps in Germany during World War II.

The massacre of Iranian political prisoners in 1988 took place on orders of ayatollah Khomeini on the pretext of the armed operations of the Sazemane Mojahedin Khalq of Iran (People’s Mojahedin Organization). But the victims of the massacre were not just members of the Mojahedin and included a large number of members of other political groupings, particularly leftist groups. While no official figures have been published about the number of executions in that year, estimates by international and human rights groups have ranged from 2,000 to 5,000 prisoners.