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Rafsanjani and his hitmen |
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Thursday, 16 June 2005 |
 Iran's murder network nearly killed me
By Hossein Abedini
The Washington Times, June 16 - It was 15 years ago, but still seems
like yesterday. In mid-afternoon on March 14, 1990, I was sitting next
to the driver taking me to the Istanbul airport, when we hit a traffic
jam caused by an accident.
Suddenly, a car carrying four men blocked our path. Another car pinned
us in from behind. Seconds later, two men, one from the front car and
one from the car behind, raced out with automatic guns.
As they approached, I opened the car door and rushed at them carrying
only a small briefcase. One of the men fired nine bullets; the other
man's gun jammed. I was shot in the chest and stomach and gravely
wounded. The assailants fled.
Luckily, we were close to Istanbul's International Hospital, where I
was rushed. I was in a deep coma for 40 days, and unconscious for three
months. With 80 percent of my liver gone, I barely survived and was
written off by my doctors more than once. One bullet hit very close to
my heart. I went through 14 operations and was given 154 pints of blood.
I am a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the
coalition of Iranian opposition movements. The assailants were acting
on behest of the clerical regime, the main state sponsor of terrorism.
Ironically, as later became evident, the hit men weren't after me.
Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
NCRI, was the real target, as Iranian state radio confirmed.
Even so, this didn't end the attempts to kill me; there were two
efforts to finish me off in the hospital. Once, assassins disguised as
Turkish police approached the hospital; luckily, the Turkish police
came to the hospital at the same time and foiled the plot. Another
time, two men pretending to be friends came to my room. They were the
mullahs' men. Once again, I was fortunate; several real friends came to
visit me at the same time, and the murderers fled.
I am one of very few who has survived mullahs' assassination attempts.
My episode is relevant now because all this took place when Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani was the clerical regime's president. With new
Iranian presidential elections approaching, he is touted as the
front-runner, and some in the West are hoping to be able to strike a
grand bargain with him.
It is important to know that there was a clear pattern of assassination and murders during his previous term.
Professor Kazem Rajavi, Iran's most renowned human-rights activist, was
gunned down in broad daylight by the mullahs' hitmen while driving near
his house in Geneva in 1990. The Swiss implicated 13 Iranian officials
with passports stamped "Special Mission." Documents released by Mr.
Rajavi's family showed that in 1997 a Swiss magistrate "clearly" had
enough evidence to justify an international arrest warrant against
Iran's then-Intelligence Minister, Ali Fallahian.
The Rajavi murder was not an isolated incident during Mr. Rafsanjani's
presidency. Several Iranian Kurdish leaders were murdered in Vienna in
1989 and in Berlin in 1992. The list goes on.
A Berlin court ruled in 1997 that a secret committee comprising supreme
leader Ali Khamenei, Mr. Rafsanjani, then-Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar
Velayati, and Mr. Fallahian, had ordered the 1992 assassinations.
The mullahs' terror targets were not only Iranians. The FBI established
undeniable evidence that Tehran had masterminded the bombing of Khobar
Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, resulting in the deaths of 19 American
servicemen. Nor is Mr. Rafsanjani's mischief-making limited to
terrorism; he is an ardent proponent of Iran's drive to acquire nuclear
weapons.
For two decades, Europe's appeasement policy has failed. The notion of
fishing up a moderate from within the regime has been offered in
different wrappings for different occasions, all to no avail.
The West's greater blunder was trying to placate the mullahs by
labeling as terrorists the People's Mujahedeen, the principal Iranian
opposition, 120,000 of whose members and sympathizers have been
executed so far. The Mujahedeen also has played a paramount role in
exposing the mullahs' nuclear program and terrorist network.
This terror-listing decision — denounced by renowned jurists as
baseless and devoid of any legal basis — has only emboldened the
regime's most extreme factions in suppression, nurturing terrorism, and
the quest to acquire nuclear weapons.
All signs indicate that the Iranian people are completely disenchanted
by the clerical system and desire fundamental changes for democracy. It
would be naive and shortsighted to pin any hope on a spent force like
Mr. Rafsanjani. The West must ally itself with the Iranian people's cry
for freedom. A first step would be to remove the Mujahedeen from the
terror list it never should have been on. The West should declare in no
unequivocal terms that it does not recognize this sham as an election.
Hossein Abedini is a member of the the National Council of Resistance of Iran. |
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