Hamid Nowzari is the head of the Iranian Political Refugees Association in Berlin, who, along with Mehran Payandeh and Abbas Khodagholi, have written two important books about the foreign assassinations attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran and conducted extensive research on what is known as state terrorism of the Islamic Republic. In the following interview, I asked him about the history, command team, and reasons behind these assassinations.

Please first provide a general overview of the history of assassinations of opponents of the Islamic Republic.

Assassination has a long history in the vocabulary of religious extremists in Iran. I do not want to delve too much into the pre-Islamic Republic era and only mention the assassination of Kusrowi as an example. Assassination has been a type of political and social action. During the Islamic Republic, physical elimination of opponents was put on the agenda shortly after the revolution. The first period can be considered the first ten years after the revolution, before the death of Khomeini. He clearly gave orders for murder, and Qasemlou can be mentioned as an example, as Khomeini said after the events in Kurdistan that Muslim forces should eliminate this element wherever they find him. Orders such as those of Khalkhali against Dr. Bakhtiar and a few others who were accused of collaborating with the previous regime can also be mentioned, which were issued based on Khomeini’s fatwa.

As long as Khomeini was alive, there were various forces around him who carried out these assassinations and orders. What is certain is that he must have approved of these actions.

Assassinations during the early years of the revolution were organized in three areas until the establishment of Vavak in the fall of 1364. One was under the supervision of Reza Shahri at Khomeini’s office, another under the supervision of Keshvar Tehrani at the Prime Minister’s office, and the third in the security section of the Revolutionary Guards, under the supervision of Forutan.

The court documents and evidence from the Mikonos trial showed that even in the surroundings of Khomeini, various groups were sometimes involved in the assassination of a person. We know that three teams were working on the assassination of Masoud Rajavi, two or three teams for the assassination of Abolhassan Banisadr, and two teams for the assassination of Hadi Khorsandi. A group of forty people, appointed by Khomeini, were responsible for drafting the manifesto of Vavak a few months before the autumn of 1985. Abolqasem Mosbah, also known as Shahed C, testified during the Mikonos trial that there were two different opinions within this group of forty. One group believed that the goal of the Ministry of Intelligence should be to gather information, evaluate and prevent threats to the country, while the other group believed that aggressive operations should also be carried out. This dispute was not resolved and was eventually brought to Khomeini

With the death of Khomeini and the rise of Khamenei in a council called the Special Affairs Committee, which included several leaders of the regime, decisions were made outside of the constitution, including assassinations. The members of this council were the leader, the president, the foreign affairs official (who did not necessarily have to be the foreign minister), the Vavak minister, the leader’s security official, one member of the Guardian Council, and one member of the security forces. The leader and the president usually sent their representatives to preparation and discussion meetings, but they personally attended the final decision-making meeting. For example, when the assassination of Sharafkandi was approved in the Special Affairs Committee, the present members were Khamenei, Rafsanjani, Ali Akbar Velayati, Ali Fallahian, Ayatollah Khazali, Reza Shahri, and from the security forces, Seifollahi. These individuals had issued the order for

In addition to foreign assassinations, has the Special Affairs Committee also issued orders for domestic assassinations? For example, did the person in charge of foreign affairs also play a role in issuing orders for domestic assassinations?

Yes, the Foreign Affairs Minister has expressed his opinion about the global reaction and international situation regarding any assassination. The Foreign Affairs Minister at that time was Ali Akbar Velayati, who happened to also be the Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, being the Foreign Affairs Minister was not mandatory, but rather someone chosen by the leader to participate in the Committee for International Affairs.

This committee has been making decisions regarding domestic assassinations from the time of Khomeini’s death until the Mykonos assassination. Even the decisions of this committee were not limited to only domestic and foreign assassinations, and they have examined any issue that was deemed necessary by the leaders of the regime and was outside the constitutional law. For example, preventing the activities of the Freedom Movement has also been approved by this committee. In fact, they mostly dealt with cases that they believed could pose a long-term threat to the security of the regime.

You call the physical elimination of opponents of the Islamic Republic as state terrorism. Did regional terrorist groups also play a role in this state terrorism?

It was revealed in the court of Mykonos that many of the assassinations and kidnappings by Hezbollah were ordered directly by Iran. This means that in situations where Iran wanted to release hostages, they would either apply pressure or reduce pressure. Especially in relation to the kidnapping of several German citizens in the 1980s by Hezbollah, the Iranian security officials were responsible for negotiating their release, such as Abu Al-Qasim Musbah and Saeed Emami. Evidence and photos of their entry into Germany for negotiations with the Germans are available, while Hezbollah was responsible for the kidnappings, they were the ones negotiating. In foreign assassinations, for example, Anis Naccache, who is Lebanese, can be mentioned. The presence of these groups in the assassinations of opponents of the Islamic Republic was very clear, including the clear presence of three Hezbollah members in the Mykonos assassination commando team.

What benefit does the Islamic Republic gain from these assassinations?

My colleagues and I have written a book called “Still a Judge in Berlin” and a translation called “The Crime System” which includes documents related to state terrorism and the physical elimination of opponents from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s outside of the country. From the end of the war and immediately after the start of President Rafsanjani’s term, a new wave of assassinations occurred outside of the country. The leaders of the regime thought that opening up the country’s economic space and establishing relationships with the World Bank and the Western world would lead to waves of protests on the outskirts of Iranian cities, and they decided to eliminate those who could potentially lead these protests. They killed Qasemlou in 1989, Kazem Rajavi in 1990, Dr. Bakhtiar in 1991, Mikonos in 1992, Noghdi in Rome in 1993, and Zahra Rajavi in Turkey in 199

There is a theory that says after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, a group within the Islamic Republic turned towards establishing relations with America and strengthening ties with the West, and as a result, assassinations intensified. The goal of these assassinations was to isolate Iran in order to exert control, especially from the leadership of the Islamic Republic. What do you think about this?

In my opinion, an organization like the Special Affairs Committee shows that this is not the case. Both the former president Hashemi Rafsanjani and the leader Khamenei were present there. However, I do not think that the assassinations of Bakhtiar or Qasemlu were related to Iran’s relationship with America. For example, the assassination of Qasemlu and Sharafkandi was because the leaders of the regime believed that this region could be dangerous for Iran and its leaders could launch movements in Iran. The assassinations of Iranian Kurdish leaders were to prevent them from playing a role in such situations. Now, as we review these events, we see that this analysis was not entirely unfounded and we have seen how Kurdistan played a major role in the region after 1991 and the US invasion of Iraq and the creation of the Kurdish autonomous region.