No sooner had the Iranians overthrown the government of the Shah in 1979 than they began seeking vengence against those they perceived as the enemies of the New Islamic Republic. In Iran itself thousands of former supporters of the Shah, as well as those who grew disillusioned with the new theocratic form of government, were killed. But the Islamic fundamentalists' thirst for revenge did not stop at their border, and they began plotting to assassinate those of their enemies who had escaped abroad. The first expatriate to die was Shahriar Shafiq, an Iranian Naval Captain who was the son of the Shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. He had fled from Iran in March 1979, and moved to Paris. There he began organizing resistance to the Islamic Republic. He was shot twice in the head by masked gunmen outside his mother's home on the Rue Pergolese on December 7, 1979. His assassins were not caught, and Iranian Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, claimed the killers were members of death squads he was sending out against Iran's foes. The next known death was unique in that its was the only one to take place in the United States. Ali Akbar Tabatabaei was a former press attache that worked for the Shah's embassy in Washington. After the overthrow of the Shah, he began criticizing the Islamic Republic from his home in Bethesda, Maryland, making him a priority target. An American black named David Belfield - who had converted to Islam and taken the name Daoud Salahuddin - was somehow recruited and on July 22, 1980, he drove to Tabatabaei's home and rang the front doorbell. He was dressed in a US Post Office uniform and said he had a package to deliever. When Tabatabaei opened the door, Salahuddin shot him three times, fatally wounding him. Salahuddin successfully fled to Iran, where he was paid the $5,000 promised him for the killing. Salahuddin later played a role in the disappearance of American Robert Levinson in 2007. Levinson seems to have been working for the CIA when he arranged to meet Salahuddin on Iran's Kish Island. He was never heard from again. Three weeks after Levinson disappeared, the Iranian state-run PressTV reported that he "had been in the hands of Iranian security forces since the early hours of March 9" and "authorities are well on the way to finishing the procedural arrangments that could see him freed in a matter of days." Despite this statement in their own press, Iranian officials have always denied knowing anything about Levinson. Salahuddin continues to live in Iran under the name of Hassan Abdulrahman and works for PressTV, and has acted in Iranian movies. On January 16, 1987, Ali Akbar Mohammadi was assassinated on a downtown street in Hamburg, Germany, by two unknown gunman. Mohammadi was a pilot who initially supported the Islamic Revolution and flew for the Iranian Speaker of Parliament (and later Iranian President) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He grew disillusioned, however, and defected in 1986 by flying an Iranian aircraft to Baghdad, Iraq. Next killed was Hamid Reza Chitgar. A French trained engineer, he returned home to Iran and was active in politics. He was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards in March, 1981, for political publications the Islamic Government didn't like. He escaped and fled to France. He traveled to Vienna, Austria, to met with an Iranian he had been corresponding with. On May 19, 1987, he was assassinated in an apartment in Vienna - but his body was not discovered for a week. He had been shot twice in the head. The apartment had been rented by a man with a Turkish passport, but the Austrians believed the killer was an Iranian agent. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, a Kurdish Iranian, Became the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) in 1973. In 1979, he and his party supported the revolution that overthrew the Shah. The KDPI then agitated for autonomy for the Kurds. This resulted in conflict with the Islamic Republic and an armed conflict broke out between Ayatollah Khomeini and the Kurdish rebels. The fighting lasted into 1984, but resulted in a Kurdish defeat. After this, Ghassemlou moved to Paris and continued to oppose the Iranian theocrats. In late 1988 and early 1989, the Iranians held three meetings in Vienna with Ghassemlou resolve their differences. On July 13, 1989, another meeting took place between a three man Iranian delegation and Ghassemlou, and two aides - Abdullah Ghaderi Azar and Fadhil Rassoul. Firing broke out in the negotiating room and Ghassemlou was killed by three bullets, Azar by eleven bullets, and Rasssoul by five. Amazingly, the Austrians, after questioning the Iranians - who of course denied they were the shooters - allowed them to return to Iran. The Austrians finally issued warrents for the arrest of the three Iranians in November, 1989, long after they had all returned home. I have to suspect that either fear of Iranian terrorism, or a desire for Iranian oil, resulted in the bizarre way the case was handled. On September 6, 1990, a letter bomb mortally wounded Efat Ghazi, a Kurdish refugee from Iran, at her home in Vasteras, Sweden. The letter was addressed to her husband, Emir Ghazi, A Kurdish activist who was a former member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (PDK-I). Efat, a school teacher and a mother of two, was not active in politics. She opened the letter, and died from her injuries in a hospital three days later. Shapour Bakhtiar was born in Iran in 1914. He went to France for his higher education, attending the College of Political Science in Paris. He fought for the republican side during the Spanish Civil War and joined the French Army in 1940 to fight against the Nazis. After France's defeat, he joined the Resistance against the Nazis. Bakhtiar returned to Iran in 1946. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddeq came to power as premier. He appointed Bakhtiar deputy minister of labor in 1953. After a coup placed the Shah back in power, Bakhtiar resisted his rule and was imprisoned six times. By the end of 1978, the Shah's power was collapsing. An effort was made to replace his military rule with a civilian one that the Shah hoped would be more popular. Bakhtiar was appointed Prime Minister by the Shah, but held the position for only 36 days. During that brief time he ordered all political prisoners be freed, lifted censorship of newspapers, relaxed martial law and ordered the dissolving of SAVAK (the Shah's secret police). Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, however, denounced Bakhtiar as a traitor for working for the Shah. The Shah fled Iran in January 1979, and Bakhtiar fled to France in April of that same year. On July 18, 1980, a team of five Iranian-backed assassins tried to kill Bakhtiar in his home near Paris. In the attempt, they killed a French policeman and a female neighbor of his, as well as wounding her sister. The would-be assassins were captured and given life sentences, but in 1990, French President Francois Mitterrand pardoned them, and sent them to Iran. On August 6, 1991, little more than a year after Mitterrand had freed those in the first assassination attempt, three more attacked Bakhtair in his home. He was stabbed to death with kitchen knives along with his secretary Soroush Katibeh. Two of the killers escaped to Iran, but a third Ali Vakili Rad, was captured in Switzerland. He was tried in France an given a life sentence. He was paroled in May, 2010, after eighteen years in prison and recieved a hero's welcome by the Iranian authorities. Fereydoun Farrokhzad was a popular poet and singer in Iran who became the host of a muscial TV vareity show. After the 1979 Revolution he was imprisoned for a time by the Iranian theocrats who viewed entertainment with suspicion. Upon being freed, Farrokhzad moved to Bonn, Germany. From there he frequently criticized the Islamic Republic for its repression. On August 8, 1992, his body was found in his apartment. He had been repeatedly stabbed in the face and upper torso and, according to some accounts, his tongue had been cut out. The case was never solved, but only the Iranian government had a motive for killing him. On September 17, 1992, four Kurds who opposed the Islamic Republic - Dr. Sadeq Sharafkandi, Homayoun Ardalan, Fattah Abdollahi and Nouri Dehkordi - were assassinated at 11pm at the Mykonos Greek Restaurant on Prager Strasse in Berlin. In April 1997, two men - Kazem Darabi (an Iranian who worked as a grocer in Berlin) and Abbas Hossein Rhayel (a Lebanese citizen) were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Two other Lebanese - Youssef Amin and Mohammed Atris - were convicted of being accessories to murder. The court also issued an arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, then Iran's Minister of Intelligence. The court also said that the assassination had been ordered by Fallahian with the knowledge of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni and then President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Iran vehemently denied these charges. In December 2007, Darabi and Rhayel were released from prison and deported. After the "Mykonos Incident" the assassinations of opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran decreased significantly. By then, about 60 Iranian expatriates had been killed. Iran has steadily denied all involvement.
