NCRI – Ten years into investigations by the U.S. and Saudi officials, the Washington Federal Court handed down its final verdict regarding the explosions at Khobar Towers in the Saudi city of Dhahran on June 25, 1996, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen and left 400 others wounded. The terrorist operation “was planned, financed, supported, and approved by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ail Khamenei,” according to the verdict.
The verdict which was published in 209 pages states that the blast of 20,000 pound of T.N.T, was considered at the time to be the most powerful non-nuclear explosion. The families of the victims of the crime filed a lawsuit against the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian regime’s mercenaries among Arab nationals.
The court ordered the regime to reimburse the families of the victims 254 million dollars.
The verdict provides precise detailed information on the role of the regime in the terrorist bombing which was revealed by the Iranian Resistance at the time.
The day after the explosions, the Iranian Resistance’s President-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi in a press conference in London’s Church House pointed out the regime’s role in the explosions. In a press conference in Washington D.C. in April 1997, Ms. Sarvnaz Chitsaz, representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in the U.S. at the time revealed the role of the regime in Khobar Towers’ terrorist attack. She said that the operation was planned and carried out by the IRGC’s Qods Force under the command of Brig. Gen. Ahamd Shareif.
In an interview with the New Yorker Magazine on September 20, 2001, the former F.B.I director reiterated on the role of the IRGC’s Qods Force in the bombings. In a side meeting at the summit of Heads of Islamic Countries In 1997, King Abdullah (then Saudi-Crown Price) told Ali-Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani (then Iran’s president) that “we are aware that your government carried out the Khobar Operation.” In Response, Rafsanjani insisted that he was not personally involved. He referred to Khamenei as “the one” who did it.
The Washington D.C. Federal Court on its March 29, 2006 verdict stressed on Khamenei’s direct involvement in another terrorist operation.
In past few years, the same court has handed down dozens of indispensable verdicts against the regime, MOIS and some of its high ranking officials for their involvement in terrorist activities. In addition, courts in Germany (Mykonos restaurant assassinations), France (assassination of former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiyar), Turkey (murder of Iranian Resistance members, Zhara Rajabi and Ali-Akbar Qorbani), and Italy (NCRI’s representative Mohammad-Hossein Naqdi’s assassination) have handed down similar verdicts against the regime. Moreover, judges in Switzerland (in the case of assassination of Dr. Kazem Rajavi, the NCRI’S representative), Argentina (in the case of 1994 bombing of the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires) and Austria (in the case of the Kurdish leaders’ assassination in Vienna) have issued arrest warrants for Rafsanjani, his Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian and other terrorist officials of the clerical regime.
Commenting on the verdict, the NCRI’S Judicial Committee Chair, Dr. Sana-Barq Zahedi, said that there was no doubt that the leaders of the regime have not only been involved in suppression, torture and execution of Iranians in Iran but were also involved in terrorist operations abroad against Iranian nationals and citizens of other countries and foreign interests. The supreme leader of the mullahs’ regime, Ali Khamenei, has given the go ahead for these crimes.
Dr. Zahedi reiterated on the need to refer the mullahs’ criminal file to the U.N. Security Council and investigation into the crimes committed by the leaders of the regime against humanity by an international tribunal. He said: "The regime’s dreadful human rights record, execution and torture of its opponents as well as its export of terrorism are clear cases of crimes against humanity."
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
December 26, 2006