(New Haven, November 8, 2007) – The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) welcomes yesterday’s announcement that Interpol has issued a Red Notice for the arrest of the former Iranian Intelligence Chief, Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian, and calls on the Iranian regime to honor its international obligations by surrendering Fallahian to face trial.
Ali Fallahian is currently the subject of no less than three international arrest warrants. In addition to his alleged role in the bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in July 1994 for which the Interpol Red Notice was posted, warrants for his arrest have also been issued by Germany in March 1996 and Switzerland in March 2006 for the leadership role he played in the murder of Iranian dissidents in both countries. Fallahian currently serves on the Council of Experts responsible for selecting Iran’s Supreme Leader and remains an influential figure in Iranian politics as a security advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Fallahian was Head of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) under the government of Hashemi Rafsanjani and he has been unapologetic about his role in Iran’s campaign of overseas political assassinations. In an interview broadcast on Iranian television on August 30 th , 1992, Fallahian boasted that under his direction Iranian Intelligence had been able to “strike a blow” at many of the expatriate opposition groups based outside Iran’s borders.
The IHRDC has extensively documented Ali Fallahian’s involvement in the murder of three leading members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) in a Berlin restaurant in September 1992 in its report Murder at Mykonos: Anatomy of a Political Assassination.
In the forthcoming IHRDC report, No Safe Haven, the Center documents the Islamic Republic’s murderous seventeen-year campaign against exiled Iranian opposition figures. This campaign ran from 1979 to 1996 and saw opponents of the Islamic Republic murdered in countries as diverse as the United States, France, Turkey, Austria, Iraq and Dubai.
“Ali Fallahian has blood on his hands. By voting to issue a Red Notice for his arrest Interpol has powerfully endorsed national attempts to bring Fallahian to trial and has taken an important step towards ending impunity for state crimes,” said Tom Parker, Executive Director of the IHRDC.
Murder at Mykonos: Anatomy of a Political Assassination is currently available in English and Farsi on IHRDC’s website at http://www.iranhrdc.org. This report is the first in a planned series of three reports on Iran’s international campaign of political assassination. For further information please contact:
Tom Parker, Executive Director Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (203) 772-2218 tparker@iranhrdc.org