WITNESS TOLD THE COURT IRAN’S CLERICAL LEADER ORDERED KILLING OF JOURNALISTS
By Iraj Fatemi and other reports
PARIS 27 June (IPS) A witness at the trial of the murder of Dr. Curys Elahi exploded a bombshell in the courtroom when he disclosed Tuesday that agents of the Information (Intelligence Ministry), including himself, were instructed by the Islamic Republic to kill at least two dissident journalists in London.
Mr. Ali Qorbanifar, the brother of Manoochehr, an arms dealer who played a leading role in the "Irangate" scandal revealed that in association with Mr. Farhad Mesbahi, a high-ranking agent of the Intelligence Ministry, he had infiltrated a team of Lebanese and Algerian trained terrorist to London to murder Dr. Alireza Noorizadeh, an investigative journalist and Mr. Hadi Khorsandi, an acclaimed satirist, both opposed to the present Iranian theocratic regime.
"But in the course of event, Mr. Mesbahi changed his mind and revealed the name of the terrorist to the British authorities who arrested the team", he further said.
Mr. Mesbahi became famous as "Witness C" during the trial in Berlin of Iranian and Lebanese terrorists who had killed four leading members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in a restaurant named "Mykonos" – hence the name of the trial—in 1992, when he revealed that all the assassination of Iranian dissidents inside and outside the country are decided by Ayatollah Ali Khamenehe'i, the leader of the regime and Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, then president, both chairing an organisation named "Terror Committee".
Mr. Abolhasan Banisadr, Islamic Republic’s first elected president who appeared at the Mykonos trial and now appears as witness in the Paris criminal court confirmed the existence of the Terror Committee.
In its ruling delivered on April 1997, the Berlin High Court said "all the clerical leaders of the Islamic Republic were personally involved in the assassination of Iranian dissidents opposed to their regime".
Mr. Qorbanifar said he new Mr. Mojtaba Mashadi, reported to be working closely with Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian, the notorious Intelligence Minister, believed to be behind the murder of hundreds of Iranian intellectuals and politicians, and would report to the Terror Committee on the situation of Iranian opponents in France.
Mr. Mashadi, now a Frenchman, appeared in the court as a free witness. He had been sentenced twice to three years imprisonment, in 1993 and 1996, charged of "association" in the assassination of Dr. Curys Elahi, an American citizen of Iranian extract who served as deputy leader of the Paris-based, US funded "Derafsh Kaviani" organisation.
Unkown killer, introduced to his flat by Mr. Mashadi, shot him dead in his apartment in Paris on 23 October 1990.
Mr. Mashadi told the court indirectly that he was a double agent, as, in his words, all his contacts with the Iranian authorities and trips to Iran were known to the French counter-espionage agency.
Mr. Qorbaifar, who used to have a carpet shop in Paris, also made same claims, adding that he knew both Mr. Mashadi and Mr. Mesbahi, the three working for the Iranian secret services as early as 1986.
Mr. Mesbahi, according to Mr. Qorbanifar, left France after a series of explosions that rocked the French capital. Another Iranian named Vahid Gorji, a so-called interpreter at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, believed to be the mastermind of the explosions, was allowed to leave France
The release of Mr. Gorji, who was hiding in the Iranian Embassy, triggered the suicide of a young judge investigating the case and outraged the French press and society, who accused the French justice of cowardice and the then France’s conservative government of yielding to blackmail.
But speaking to the Persian service of Radio France Internationale, Mr. Qorbanifar said his contacts with the Iranian secret services were via Mr. Mesbahi and Mashadi.
He said he believed the order to assassinate Mr. Noorizadeh and Mr. Khorsandi were handed by Mr. Fallahian and approved by Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani. ENDS ELAHI TRIAL 27601