ISJ open letter about closure of Kazem Rajavi assassination case

The International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ) has written an open letter to Simonetta Sommaruga, the President of the Swiss Confederation, to condemn Switzerland’s recent decision to close the case of the assassination of Professor Kazem Rajavi and demand that his killers be put on trial in Switzerland with no leniency.  

It begins with the ISJ expressing their shock that the Vaud Prosecutor’s Office would close the assassination case of Rajavi, who was at the time the Representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Switzerland and the European Headquarters of the United Nations.

The letter reads: “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.”

It explains that the assassination case of the prominent human rights advocates, gunned down in Geneva on April 24, 1990, by agents of the Iranian regime has already gone on for far too long and that the planners and executioners should have been brought to justice years ago.

The NCRI named former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, then-Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, and President Hassan Rouhani as just some of those involved in this heinous crime.

The 2006 arrest warrant for Fallahian issued by the Vaud prosecutor explains that the assassination was “carefully planned”  and indicates that it was carried out at the behest of Iran’s intelligence service (Vavak) because all of the 13 service passports issued for the Commando teams were issued from a street in Tehran with two Vavak buildings.

The ISJ letter read: “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. “

They called on Sommaruga, the Swiss Foreign and Justice ministers, the Swiss Attorney General, the Vaud prosecutor and other Swiss officials to issue international arrest warrants for the culprits and put them on trial, in absentia if necessary.

The letter read: “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.”

The letter was signed by:

• ISJ President Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former vice-president of the European Parliament
• ISJ Committee Chair on the Protection of Human Rights & Justice in Iran Giulio Terzi, a former Italian Foreign Minister
• ISJ Committee Chair on the Protection of Political Freedoms in Iran Struan Stevenson, a former chairperson of the European Parliament’s Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup