The Serial Murders (PartIII) PDF Print E-mail
Monday, 28 November 2005
Who is to blame?

In the face of public and international pressure, on December 14, 1998, President Mohammad Khatami announced the establishment of a special committee to investigate the killings, but before the inquiry even began, apparently the régime’s leaders already knew the answers.  President Khatami said: “These murders are ominous schemes of the enemies of independence and freedom of the Islamic state.

Hojatoleslam Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, then Intelligence Minister, said: “These kinds of crimes are rooted abroad” and “the enemies” want to create “turmoil” and “unrest” in the country and portray it as “crisis-riddled”.

“This network is located abroad”, Judiciary spokesman Fotovat Savadkouhi chimed in, and was one of the first to accuse the People’s Mojahedin of Iran of involvement in the conspiracy, a tactic routinely used by the régime to deflect criticism.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic said the killings “complement the other conspiracies by the World Arrogance (the pejorative term normally used for the United States) ”. A few days later, the Director of the Islamic Propaganda Organisation stated as a fact: “These murders were carried out by the Zionists with the cooperation of the Mojahedin group ”.

Less than a month later, however, the committee appointed by President Khatami disclosed that 10 Intelligence Ministry employees had been arrested and many more were under surveillance. The committee said it had concrete information on the slayings that could not be disclosed without hurting the investigation.

Leading the Friday prayers on January 8, the Supreme Leader staked his name and prestige on the allegation that foreign elements were involved: “With all my long experience at the helm of the state and all the information in my possession, I cannot accept that these dirty, disgusting and hateful assassinations that have harmed the system, the government, the nation and the people, are written without a foreign scenario”.

Specifically mentioning the CIA, Britain’s MI5 and MI6 and Israel’s Mossad, he said: “You will be shocked to learn about the scope of the crimes, assassinations, bombings and intimidations committed by these intelligence services”.

“I don’t think the issue is over.  This seems to be a long story,’’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told worshipers during a prayer sermon at Tehran University.

To accommodate the earlier version of the story, the Ministry of Intelligence admitted that the murders were committed by some of its agents, but claimed that these individuals were in league with the foreign elements mentioned previously. The public relations department of the Intelligence Ministry declared that, “with utmost deep regret, a number of our irresponsible and selfish colleagues at the Ministry, who were no doubt in contact with foreign intelligence services, have committed these crimes”.

This was the main theme of the propaganda, even after, as will be seen, the Intelligence Ministry admitted that its own agents were the killers.  It was said that although the actual perpetrators had been identified, an extensive investigation was still under way to identify the foreign elements who were the masterminds behind the scenes. Mohsen Reza’i, former commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and now Secretary of the Council to Discern State Exigency, blamed Israeli agents and said: “They went up to an employee of the Intelligence Ministry and said to him that Daryoush Forouhar may lead a coup against the Islamic Republic”.

In January 1999, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Niazi, Head of the Judicial Organisation of the Armed Forces (JOAF), was put in charge of the investigation.  Karim Lahiji, President of the Paris-based Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights, believed that the reason for transferring the case to the jurisdiction of the Armed Forces Judiciary, an unusual choice for a case involving no members of the Armed Forces, was to whitewash the issue.  He pointed out that dissident cleric Mohsen Kadivar, and the editors of Hovviyat Khish, who drew attention to the fact that the murders were committed on the authority of fatwa issued by high-level religious personalities, had been detained.

In April, Niazi told Salam daily: “There are several items of evidence and indications pointing to the fact that foreign elements had infiltrated and were involved in these murders”. He was still peddling the same line a month later when he insisted that “There is evidence to prove that the serial murders could not have taken place without being guided by foreign elements”.  Responding indirectly to those who saw the chain murders as the work of “hard-liners only”, he added: “According to new information obtained, the perpetrators of these murders will be tried and punished. Those involved in this affair were of different political persuasions and were not related to any of the factions”.

In June, as speculation about the killings mounted, he stuck fast to the agreed line, and again tried to stop the rumours: “We hold proofs and confessions which point to foreign involvement in these murders…. We cannot provide any further information, as the investigations still go on”. He warned the newspapers not to create confusion and called on them to contain themselves, otherwise they will be warned once and then legal measures will be taken.

Ataollah Mohajerani, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance and the Khatami government’s spokesman, parroted the line agreed upon by all the factions: “In general, these murders could not have taken place without foreign involvement”.

The banned daily Neshat which supported Khatami, wrote: “Regarding the identity of the perpetrators of recent murders, Gholamhossein Bolandian, Deputy Interior Minister, said that according to the information gathered during interrogations, it was clear that there were contacts with foreign elements who wanted to take advantage of the situation. He did not reply to a question asking him to name the country involved in these murders”.