Mohsen Rafighdoost Introduced Himself as the 'Commander of Assassination' of Farrokhzad, Oveisi, and Bakhtiar

Mohsen Rafighdoost, former head of the Foundation of the Oppressed and a conservative figure in Iran, in an interview confirmed the occurrence of extraterritorial assassinations by agents of the Islamic Republic, introducing himself as the 'commander of the assassination' of figures such as Shapour Bakhtiar and Fereydoun Farrokhzad. Although the involvement of Iranian government agents in assassinations abroad has been raised multiple times in the media, this is one of the few instances where a well-known figure of the Islamic Republic of Iran acknowledges this matter. Rafighdoost, who was previously a former minister of the IRGC and is considered a figure of the Motalefeh Party, stated in an interview recently published by the 'Iran Watch' website: 'I was the commander of the assassination of General Oveisi, Fereydoun Farrokhzad, the son of Ashraf [Pahlavi], and Shapour Bakhtiar.' The assassination of Shapour Bakhtiar, the last Prime Minister of the Pahlavi regime in the summer of 1991, the murder of Fereydoun Farrokhzad, a singer, poet, and actor in Bonn, Germany in the summer of 1992, and the assassination of the Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and his companions in the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin in September 1992 date back to the presidency of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Rafighdoost, now 84 years old, explained in the interview: 'The team we had there carried out the assassinations of Oveisi, the son of Ashraf, Farrokhzad, Bakhtiar, etc. Usually, Basque kids were assigned to execute these operations; they were the ones who did it.' His reference is to the Basque separatist group ETA, which has a history of dozens of murders and bombings in this European country and was placed on the list of terrorist organizations by the European Union in 2002. Accusations of the Islamic Republic's use of foreign armed militias to act against the government's opponents abroad are not unprecedented, but apparently, this is the first time a claim about the Islamic Republic's connection with the Basque separatists has been published. Rafighdoost further claims in his interview that he threatened the French Foreign Minister in his office for the release of Anis Naqash, the failed assassin of Shapour Bakhtiar. He recounts that he told the French Foreign Minister: 'If I tell him [Naqash] and he breaks the hunger strike, when will they be released? They said it would take two weeks. I said: Well, if after two weeks one of your embassies is bombed or one of your planes is hijacked, don't complain anymore. After that, Anis Naqash was released and came.' The Islamic Republic, which has a history of physically eliminating its opponents at various historical periods both inside and outside the country, has threatened several journalists and political activists abroad with physical elimination through cyberspace or pressured their families inside the country in recent years. The Abdolrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights reported in August 2021 that the Iranian government has a long history of extrajudicial killings. The Boroumand Foundation 'has identified more than 540 Iranians whose murders or successful kidnappings are attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran' in its ongoing investigations. Mohsen Rafighdoost's name has appeared in several cases of financial abuse, and he has been accused of 'amassing wealth' by abusing his position in the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War. Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, spokesman for Mohammad Khatami's government, once tweeted at him: 'Mr. Rafighdoost, the overthrower is someone who has prospered through war procurement commissions and is complicit in the blood of fighters against Saddam.' The assassination of Shahrayar Shafigh, the son of Ashraf Pahlavi, who was also a senior naval officer, in December 1979 in Paris was one of the first assassinations by the Islamic Republic against its opponents. Sadegh Khalghali, the then head of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, with full powers from Ruhollah Khomeini, sentenced this 34-year-old Iranian prince and grandson of Reza Shah, who was said to have great popularity among the military forces of Iran at the time, to execution. Four years later, General Gholamali Oveisi was killed in Paris in February 1984. Subsequent extensive investigations revealed that the Islamic Jihad group in Lebanon, led by Imad Mughniyeh, who later became a senior commander of Hezbollah, assassinated General Oveisi for the Iranian government in active collaboration with armed militia groups operating in Europe. Previously, other agents in the Islamic Republic had considered the assassination of General Oveisi a military mission to eliminate opponents abroad and had proudly spoken of it. Hossein Faraji, a journalist and close friend of Fereydoun Farrokhzad, stated in several interviews in the early days after Farrokhzad's assassination that his murder was an example of killing opponents who were actively working against the Islamic Republic abroad.