BY Rashid Haidari
Saturday, June 3, 2005

Recently, an Austrian MP from The Green Party of that country said that he had got evidence which confirmed that Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the current candidate for the presidential election in that country, was among those who ordered the murder of Dr Abdul-Rahman Ghasemlou in Austrian capital, Vienna, 16 years ago.

Dr Ghasemlou , the then Secretary General of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, and two of his comrades were invited to Vienna on July 12, 1989 by Tehran regime to attend a meeting with its representatives with the intention of finding a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question in that country.

The next day, at about 7:30 p.m. Police discovered Dr. Ghasemlou ’s bullet-riddled body seated in an armchair. His two associates were sprawled dead on the floor. Within hours, the Austrians had found the murder weapon, had one suspect, Bozorgian, in custody and the second in a hospital, and knew the identity of the third. In a few days, they had found enough evidence to indict all three. According to Manuchehr Ganji, the leader of the Flag of Freedom Organization and a survivor of numerous attempts on his own life, “The Austrian authorities took the easy route – they let all three culprits go back to Tehran.”

In his recent statements, the Austrian MP Mr. Peter Pilz referred to an Iranian journalist as the source of his information whom he had met with in Versay three days earlier. Mr. Pilz declared that the journalist was ready to attend a meeting with any of Austrian authorities to present his argumentations.  Mr. Pilz insisted that he would do his best to open the case of Dr. Qasemlou’s assassination.

According to the news agencies, the source of Mr. Peter Pilz’s information, mentioned as “D” for safety’s sake, left Iran following his house had been checked by Iranian security forces.

Mr. Pilz also said that he had seen undistributed information from the police of his country on the event of the murder of Dr. Ghasemlou  that were from 16 years ago and that he could compare his information with them in order to get the final results.

The Austrian PM also believed that except for Rafsanjani, two other candidates who have been approved by Guardian Council as qualified to run for the upcoming presidential election had possibly had a strong hand in the international assassinations. According to Peter Pilz, these two people are Ahmadinezhad, the Tehran current mayor, and Muhssen Rezaee, the former general commander of The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or Pasdaran which was formed following the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in an effort to consolidate several paramilitary forces into a single force loyal to the new regime and to function as a counter to the influence and power of the regular military.

The Austrian PM’s statements revealing the involvement of the former Iranian authorities in the murder of Dr. Ghasemlou could be considered as a great turning point on that case.

Now, sixteen years have passed since Dr Ghasemlou was murdered. But, as we all know, the judiciary system of Austria continues to ignore finding those responsible for his assassination. Austrian government’s non-pursuit of Dr. Ghasemlou’s murderers only further harms the reputation of the Austrian judicial system. What pro-democracy individuals, human rights activists and defenders, public opinion in general and the Kurdish people in particular are expecting now is that Austria will conduct a full and fair investigation of Dr. Ghasemlou’s murder without any further postponements. The evidence got by Peter Pilz will hopefully pave the way for such an investigation.

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Sources:

1. Radio Farda

2. Dialogue of Murder, by Cyrus Kadivar

3. Globalsecurity