BCIF: Switzerland must prosecute Iran terrorists for assassination of ambassador
The British Committee for Iran Freedom, BCIF has issued a statement expressing their shock that the Prosecutor’s Office in Vaud, Switzerland, has closed the file related to the 1990 assassination of Professor Kazem Rajavi.
Sir David Amess MP, the Co-Chair of BCIF, wrote: “The decision to close the file is an insult to justice and a violation of democratic and human rights values, prompted by political expediency that encourages the religious fascism ruling Iran to carry out further assassinations with impunity.”
At the time of his death, Rajavi, the brother of Iranian Resistance leader Massoud Rajavi, was the Representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Switzerland and at the United Nations’ European Headquarters of Geneva. The Iranian regime sent terrorists to kill this prominent human rights advocate in the Geneva suburbs on April 24, 1990.
The case moved slowly, but in 2006, the Vaud investigative Judge ordered the arrest of Ali Fallahian – the Iranian Minister of Intelligence in 1990 – for his role in the assassination.
The warrant reads: “The execution of Kazem Rajavi was carefully planned. Commando teams once came to Switzerland in October 1989, then in late January and early February 1990, and finally from April 10 to 24, 1990… Investigations revealed that 13 people were involved in the preparation and execution of the murder. The thirteen had Iranian service passports with ‘on mission’ mark engraved on them. Some of these documents were issued simultaneously in Tehran on the same day… All Iranian service passports were issued only by order of the ministry under the leadership of Ali Fallahian and were confiscated at the same airport when the perpetrators returned to Iran. All of the service passports of 13 people whose names were mentioned above were issued in Karim Khan, a street in Tehran. Two buildings on this street are the headquarters of a section of Iran’s intelligence service, Vavak.”
The NCRI named more people involved with planning the assassination, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani, and then-Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati; the latter two were on the Supreme National Security Council at the time.
Amess wrote: “Terrorism and crimes against humanity are not subject to the statute of limitations, particularly in the case of a regime in which one ambassador and six diplomats have been expelled for participating in assassination attempts against dissidents in the past two years alone, and another diplomat has been in jail in Belgium for nearly two years for his criminal plot to bomb a large gathering of Iranians in Paris on June 30, 2018.”
The BCIF then called on the President of the Swiss Confederation, the Swiss Foreign and Justice ministers, the Swiss Attorney General, the Vaud prosecutor, and other Swiss officials to issue warrants for those responsible and put them on trial in absentia.
Amess wrote: “We call on all human rights advocates, parliamentarians, and civil society in Switzerland to call on the authorities to continue to pursue justice in this file. The prosecution of criminals is the best way to deal with terrorism; closing this file facilitates and promotes more terrorism.”Top of FormBottom of Form
