The Manhattan-based federal trial of two alleged contract killers employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to homicide the Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad coincided with stunning revelations that Tehran ordered the assassinations of dissidents in Europe, information that might have profound implications for President Trump’s Iran coverage.
The trial of the 2 suspects and the disclosures of a former founding father of the U.S.-sanctioned terrorist group IRGC that the ayatollahs ordered the murders of Iranians in exile add better urgency to the necessity to handle Iran’s threats to homicide President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iranian-American critics of the regime, in response to specialists.
Mohsen Rafiqdoost, a former high-level IRGC official who additionally served as a bodyguard for the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared in a video interview that he oversaw operations to eradicate exiled Iranian dissidents.
In an interview on the Iranian regime-controlled outlet Didehban-e Iran, he mentioned the dissidents included former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, the favored artist Fereydoun Farrokhzad, who was murdered in Bonn, Germany, and navy officers Gholam-Ali Oveissi and Shahriar Shafiq.
Rafiqdoost mentioned, “The Basque separatist group in Spain carried out these assassinations for us. We paid them, they usually carried out the killings on our behalf.”
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Alinejad was allegedly focused by the Iranian regime in a foiled assassination try. (Fox Information)
Jason Brodsky, the coverage director of United Towards Nuclear Iran (UANI), mentioned, “Mohsen Rafiqdoost’s feedback are an request for forgiveness. They need to be replayed each time an Iranian official is interviewed by a Western journalist denying complicity in assassination plots. The trial starting on Monday is a reminder that the regime’s terror risk is actual, probably deadly, and won’t go away by simply burying our heads within the sand.”
Final week, international ministers from the G-7 democracies introduced in a joint assertion, “That Iran is the principal supply of regional instability and mustn’t ever be allowed to develop and purchase a nuclear weapon. They emphasised that Iran should now change course, de-escalate and select diplomacy. They underscored the specter of Iran’s rising use of arbitrary detention and international assassination makes an attempt as a device of coercion.”
The reference to “international assassination makes an attempt” is an unusually powerful collective rhetorical rebuke for Iran due to its efforts to assassinate Trump, Alinejad and Iranian dissidents throughout the globe.
In November, Fox Information Digital reported that the Justice Division introduced it thwarted an Iranian plot to kill Trump within the weeks main as much as the election.
Iran skilled Lisa Daftari advised Fox Information Digital, “This revelation about Iran’s international assassination marketing campaign is a stark reminder of the lengths to which authoritarian regimes will go to silence dissent and exert management past their borders. It’s a blatant assault on worldwide norms and a direct risk to international safety. The US should reply decisively – not simply with phrases however with motion. President Trump’s coverage to deport those that espouse terrorism is a step in the appropriate route, but it surely’s not sufficient to discourage the mullahs.”
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Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps march throughout a parade. The IRGC is designated as a international terrorist group by the State Division. (Reuters)
Daftari, who’s the editor-in-chief of The International Desk, added, “We want stronger intelligence collaboration with our allies and elevated stress on the IRGC by way of sanctions and every other mandatory punitive measures. The message have to be clear – there isn’t a place for state-sponsored terrorism on our soil.”
The U.S. and Canada have categorised the IRGC as a international terrorist entity. Regardless of quite a few IRGC terrorism plots and assassinations in Europe, the UK and the European Union have opposed a designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group.
Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, a German-Iranian skilled on Tehran’s assassination campaigns, advised Fox Information Digital in regards to the former chief of the IRGC: “He belongs to the group of conservative Islamists who’ve by no means hidden the crimes they dedicated. He takes pleasure in the truth that opponents of the regime had been executed in exile.”
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An enormous mural of Ayatollah Khamenei, which features a smaller one among Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran, Iran, on March 8, 2020. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Photos)
Fox Information Digital despatched a press question to the German federal prosecutor’s workplace and the prosecutor’s workplace in Bonn, the place Farrokhzad was murdered, asking in the event that they plan to reopen the case of Farrokhzad.
Mina Ahadi, a distinguished German-Iranian dissident, introduced up the case of Iran’s former ambassador to Germany, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who’s at present a researcher at Princeton College, and known as for his arrest by authorities.
Fox Information Digital reported in April 2024 that Mousavian allegedly oversaw the assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe within the Nineties, together with Farrokhzad. Mousavian, who was Iran’s ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997, has vehemently denied the allegations that he was concerned within the Iranian regime-ordered bloodbath of Kurdish dissidents at a Berlin restaurant in 1992.
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After Trump ordered a drone strike to kill the U.S. and EU-designated Iranian regime terrorist Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020, Mousavian paid tribute to Soleimani in a 2022 Iran TV program. Mousavian additionally went to Iran to attend the funeral of Soleimani, who was chargeable for the murders of over 600 American navy personnel within the Center East, in response to the U.S. authorities.
Mousavian took to X on the so-called Chain Murders in Iran – an intensive Iranian regime state-sponsored marketing campaign that eradicated necessary Iranian dissidents between 1986 and 1998. Mousavian mentioned, “Fereydoun Farrokhzad was murdered in mid-August 1992 at his dwelling in Bonn, Germany. At the moment, I used to be the Iranian Ambassador to Germany, and together with my colleagues on the embassy, I made in depth efforts for the return of Iranians residing in Germany who wished to return to Iran.”
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses the media in the course of the voting for parliamentary elections in Tehran on Might 10, 2024. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu by way of Getty Photos)
Mousavian’s tweet famous, “We pursued the matter, and the related authorities in Tehran assured us that Farrokhzad had been assassinated by the Iranian opposition overseas. We then relayed Tehran’s place to the German authorities and in interviews.”
His assertion concluded, “I want that figures like Farrokhzad, who had been keen to return to their homeland, may have returned safely to their motherland. It’s in Iran’s nationwide curiosity to make use of the potential of Iranians dwelling overseas and guarantee their full safety for his or her return to their homeland.”
Mousavian didn’t reply to quite a few Fox Information Digital electronic mail press queries, together with a WhatsApp message and phone name.
Lawdan Bazargan, the Iranian-American human rights activist, mentioned Iran’s regime had lured Iranian dissidents again to the nation to later execute them. She forged doubt on Mousavian’s clarification that he sought to repatriate Farrokhzad. Bazargan cited the case of Javad Safar as a dissident who returned to Iran and was killed by the regime. Iran’s regime has employed subtle surveillance operations to lure distinguished Iranian dissidents to nations with lax safety to kidnap them and transport the dissidents to Iran.
A telling instance concerned the journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was tricked by the regime and executed in 2020. Zam’s web site and social media experience helped unfold details about protests towards the clerical regime and uncovered widespread regime corruption.
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Quite a few Fox Information Digital press queries despatched to Iran’s international ministry and U.N. mission weren’t answered.
Fox Information’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.
