ATTEMPT TO MURDER SA'ID HAJJARIAN SHOCKED IRANIANS
By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor
TEHRAN 12th March (IPS) Iranians were shocked Sunday after Mr. Sa'id Hajjarian, one of the nation's leading politicians, journalist and reformer close to President Hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami was shot at close range and seriously wounded by an unidentified professional gunman who fled on the back of a powerful motorbike.
A former senior official at the Intelligence Ministry turned reformist, Mr. Hajjarian, 47, was both the deputy Head of the Tehran City Council and the Executive Committee of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) that won a landslide victory in last month's Majles (parliament) elections.
"He was hit once in the face with a revolver equipped with a silencer at 8.40 in the morning as he came out of his car in front of the City Council, talking with some people outside", deputy Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) revolutionary guard general Ansari told Tehran Radio.
Quoting a spokesman for the medical team that attends the wounded publisher of the outspoken "Sobhe Emrouz" reformist daily, Tehran Radio reported in its evening news bulletin that Mr. Hajjarian was still in coma, but his brain is responding and he is breathing without the help of artificial machine.
Sources in Tehran told Iran Press Service that the killers, riding on a powerful 1000 CC motorcycle, were following Mr. Hajjarian's car.
This size of the engine is outlawed in Iran except for use by police, LEF, security and Information Ministry personnel, they observed.
In their first reaction as to who may have hired the killers, informed sources pointed out to the direction of former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, the man nicknamed by Iranian investigative journalists as the "Master Key" that masterminded the murder of more than eighty dissidents Iranian political, intellectual and journalists during the eight years of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's prsidency.
The former president who did very poorly in the last Majles elections, being "pushed" into the house thanks to vote rigging in his favour, has adamantly refused to endorse accusations in the press against Mr. Fallahian.
As all reformist organisations and parties strongly condemned the assassination attempt and President Khatami wowed to use all means at his disposal to identify the murderers.
Other analysts said the attempt could be also the work of the remnant of the same gang of the Information Ministry's high ranking officials who eliminated prominent dissidents inside and outside Iran.
Mr. Ahmad Salamatian, a Paris-based political analyst did not ruled out "intelligence" between the lone killer with some officials "sitting high above".
"For some people, Mr. Hajjarian was seen as the man responsible for the transfer of the nations' political centre of gravity from the Expediency Council (which is chaired by Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani) to the new Majles majority fraction held by the pro-Khatami IIPF", he observed.
Asked by reporters to comment on the identity of the killers, Mr. Abbas Abdi, former deputy Editor of the veteran reformist daily "Salam" said he and his colleagues shared the feeling that certain people were still feeling disgruntled about the result of the February 18 parliamentary polls in Iran, and because they could not reverse the course of the political developments in Iran, they now chose to assassinate people and personalities.
"Those who had designed and engineered the attempt against the life of Hajjarian probably, and obviously rightly, believed that he had been the leading theoretician of the present reformation in Iran", IRNA quoted him as having said.
The assassination attempt on the life of Mr. Hajjarian provoked nation-wide condemnation by personalities, groups, associations and political parties except the Leader, tenors of the conservative institutions as well as the Chairman of the Expediency Council, most of them saying that the attempt had been designed and engineered by people who are opposed to national reformation movement in iran, many of them saying that the plot had been designed by people who had suffered a set-back in iran's parliamentary elections february 18.
On visit to his hometown of Yazd known for its Zoroastrian temples, President Mohammad Khatami strongly condemned the terrorist attempt on the life of his adviser for political and strategic affair, describing the failed assassination as an "ugly phenomenon".
Speaking in Meybod, near Yazd, Mr. Khatami, visibly shocked at the news, said the terrorists who resort to such acts have no place among the people. "They know well that people hate them and by committing such acts, they will be even more hated", the President said.
Some analysts and journalists including Hojatoleslam Ali Hekmat, Editor of the reformist daily "Fath" said if Mr. Khatami would have dealt more vigorously with the gang of Intelligence Ministry that murdered on November 1998 six leading Iranian politicians and intellectuals he could have prevented the assassination plot on the life of Mr. Hajjarian.
However, Mr. Khatami promised that his government has strong determination to fight and to uproot terrorism, violence and murder.
"Enemies of freedom and independence do not want to see progress of the Iranian nation", he went on.
"Today a criminal hand is at work and displayed its ugly face by gunning down a dear human being. Today the representative of Tehran people to the city council was shot and critically wounded. The enemies of freedom and pride of the nation think that with assassination of a faithful, thinker and servant of the people and the Islamic revolution they would reach their goals,"
"We are men of logic and seek the independence, freedom and progress of the country", Mr. Khatami said in a veiled hint to the hard liners who, under the leadership of Mr. Khameneh'i opposes reforms and modernisation of politics in Iran.
"Terrorism is a means for those who lack logic so that they resort to violence. Terrorism is a means for those who have no place among the people. They resort to terrorism in order to damage the solidarity among the various groups in the society that have driven the illogical terrorists from society," the Pesident said.
Mr. Hajjarian, an outspoken political activist was reported to be on a "death list" prepared by gangs belonging to the Information Ministry.
The list includes the names of other prominent journalists, politicians and intellectuals, like Hojatoleslam Abdollah Nouri, former Interior Minister who was sentenced to five years of imprisonment on charges of insulting Islam and offending the Leader, ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, Mr. Akbar Ganji, the most well known investigative journalist author of the "Dungeon of Phantoms" and some of his colleagues.
Though Hojatoleslam Hejazi from the Office of the Leader paid visit to Mr. Hajjarian in the hospital and that the pro-Rafsanjani Servants of Reconstruction Party (SRP) condemned the assassination attempt, yet observers noted that both Ayatollah Khameneh'i and Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani remained dead silent on the tragic issue.
Intelligence Minister Hojatoleslam Ali Yunesi told official Iranian news agency IRNA that based on information obtained from people and eyewitnesses, the Ministry had obtained some clues. He did not emphasised.
Mr. Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabataba'i, also a TCC member who was near Mr. Hajjarian at the time of the shooting said LEF officers in charge of the security of the Office were on the spot with an automatic rifle but did not react to the attack
A few hours after the assassination attempt, members of the Islamic Co-operation Front (ICF) Abbass Abdi, Mohssen Mirdamadi and Mohssen Safa'i Farahani assured a large group of local and foreign reporters that the bloody incident would not slow down the tempo of the march to national reformation.
Noting that the killers of Mr. Hajjarian had fled the scene on a brand of Honda motorcycle of which there are only a few in Iran, Mr. Mirdamadi said the identification and arrest of the murderers should not be too difficult for the security forces.
He confirmed that Mr. Hajjarian had also been in the hit list of chain murderers of the Intelligence Ministry, adding that he, too, would have been assassinated by the murderers if the serial murders had not been uncovered.
Asked if the Co-operation Front suspected any person or group to be behind the assassination attempt, Mr. Safa'i Farhani said all those who are opposed to reformation now in progress in Iran are behind the terrorist operation assassination attempt whether in Iran or abroad. "They were the number one suspects in Hajjarian's slaying", he said.
The attempt on the life of Mr. Hajjarian took place less than 24 hours after reformists journalists and newspapers expressed concern for the life of Mr. Akbar Ganji and other investigative journalists engaged in disclosing horrendous details of the crimes committed by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry under the former president.
One day before, the offices of "Sobhe Emrouz" in the northwestern city of Orumyeh were set ablaze by unidentified arsonists.
The daily "Fath" that replaced "Khordad" wrote Saturday that pressures from the conservatives on the Intelligence Ministry to have Mr. Ganji arrested and silenced had increased to dangerous levels, adding that there are plans to have him killed. ENDS HAJJARIAN 12300