Mustafa Pourmohammadi's Statements and His Increasing Role in the Chain Murders

Mustafa Pourmohammadi's remarks in a controversial interview with the internet television "Student News Agency" represent a new attempt by him to create a false narrative regarding the occurrence of the chain murders during Mohammad Khatami's government. Although the interview pertains to his entire period of activity in senior security and executive positions, this section has received more attention. He had previously expressed similar views on July 9, 2019, in an interview with the newspaper "Shargh." The motivation and goal behind Pourmohammadi's repetition of this claim are unclear. At the very least, one can assume that he is trying to rehabilitate his image and whitewash his past as he continues his candidacy in the fourteenth presidential elections. However, given the sensitivity of this issue and its security implications for the regime, it cannot be evaluated merely as his personal decision. It seems that distorting those crimes and diverting the main source by providing misleading information and adding to the confusions in the political arena is the intended goal of the hardline power core, with which Pourmohammadi, as an old force of repression, is associated. In expressing his views, Pourmohammadi appears to take several radical steps. First, as a former senior official of the Ministry of Intelligence, he states that the chain murders were not "self-directed" and also considers the attribution of the chain murders to foreign elements as "incorrect," while confirming mistreatment and pressure against the accused of the chain murders. Twenty-five years after the chain murders, has the structure of repression changed? Linking the chain murders to foreign elements was implicitly raised by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. Ali Khamenei stated in the first Friday prayer after the announcement by the Ministry of Intelligence regarding the acceptance of responsibility for the murders: "My familiarity with political issues over the past twenty years and before this during the revolution—my familiarity with individuals, familiarity with political currents, familiarity with various conspiracies that we have always been aware of from around the world—does not allow me to believe that this work is done by elements who have no issue with the regime and do not want to work against the regime." The interrogation team also, within this framework, obtained confessions from Saeed Emami and his wife and other accused under torture regarding their connection to Israel. Even now, Mohammad Niazi, the former head of the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces, defends the role of "foreign infiltration" in the design of the chain murders. Pourmohammadi's statements contradict Khamenei's views. However, the main controversial part of Pourmohammadi's remarks is exonerating the regime and Saeed Emami while placing the burden of responsibility on Mustafa Kazemi, the primary accused in the chain murders case, after the suspicious death of Saeed Emami! He explains the target of the operational team in the chain murders as follows: "Some individuals involved in the murders said that radical anti-revolutionary forces were approaching the reformist government and would cause a security crisis. ... They said we carried out preemptive operations and targeted some benign opposition subjects to show that Khatami's government does not spare even more moderate individuals and that there is no difference between the governments of the Islamic Republic." Mustafa Kazemi, during the tenure of Minister of Intelligence Gholamali Daryush Najafabadi, was the deputy of security. He had previously leaned towards the Imam Line (left) faction, which had diminished after his activity in Ali Fallahian's Ministry of Intelligence and the sidelining of security forces close to the left faction of the regime. During Daryush Najafabadi's presidency, he remained in the same position. Kazemi had worked with managers aligned with the right faction of the regime throughout Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's presidency. He had no alignment with the positions of the second Khordad reformist movement but, due to his past, like most forces known as traditional leftists in the broad and diverse spectrum of the second Khordad front, he supported Khatami's election in the seventh presidential election. It should be noted that the left and right factions in the Ministry of Intelligence do not equate to the political arena. Active leftists in security institutions are generally considered right in the political arena. Moreover, the Ministry of Intelligence and other intelligence agencies have their own specific classifications. However, the reason for the attack on Kazemi and the magnification of his role is primarily due to the "false attribution" of the chain murders to reformists; an act first carried out by Rouhollah Hosseinian during his appearance on the "Chiragh" program of state television during Ali Larijani's tenure. It seems that part of the reasons they employed him in this project was his past affiliation with the left faction of the regime. However, the main reason for taking revenge on Kazemi is that he informed Khatami about the incident. Mustafa Pourmohammadi has made a failed attempt to exonerate himself, but his legal, political, and moral responsibility in the chain murders encompasses various dimensions. Those government murders were executed under the overarching management of Daryush Najafabadi, the then Minister of Intelligence, who had been imposed on Khatami. The commanders and issuers of religious decrees were located outside the Ministry of Intelligence and within the institution of Velayat-e Faqih. Pourmohammadi, as the deputy minister of intelligence, was the main face of the leadership office in the security apparatus at that time. At the same time, it should be noted that the covert and unofficial killings of political and religious opponents began after the consolidation of the Islamic Republic in 1981 and a structure was defined for it. There was also a mechanism for this within the SAVAK. However, the addition of intellectuals and literary activists to this process began during Akbar Rafsanjani's presidency and in parallel with Khamenei's "cultural invasion" plan. Saeed Emami was the theorist and manager of this inhumane project. Under the pressure of Daryush Najafabadi and the technical guidance and planning of Saeed Emami, individuals such as Kazemi, Mehrdad Alikhani, and other agents became involved in organizing the chain murders during the reformist government. They had also been active in similar crimes during Rafsanjani's government. Pourmohammadi, without referring to those events, evades his responsibility during Ali Fallahian's tenure as Minister of Intelligence, where he was responsible for the foreign affairs of this ministry but participated in major decisions. While at that time dozens of intellectuals, poets, writers, publishers, and even some well-known thugs in Tehran were killed, it received widespread media coverage, yet neither the Ministry of Intelligence nor Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani took any action or condemned them. The reason the chain murders were revealed was Khatami's resistance and the reformist government's stance, which led to the issue becoming public and the structure created for assassination in its traditional form being entirely dismantled. However, Khatami's strategic mistake was to reduce the crimes to the murders that occurred during his presidency, engaging in pragmatism in attributing them to self-directed circles and being conservative in pursuing accountability for the executors. Meanwhile, the commanders were at higher levels, and the chain of command reached Ali Khamenei himself. Of course, Khatami was in a difficult position, and fully pursuing the case would put him against Khamenei. The goal of the chain murders was to cripple the second Khordad reform movement and to violently eliminate troublesome figures from the opposition and cultural and intellectual critics. The number of individuals who were supposed to be killed was also greater than the murders that occurred, which were halted due to Khatami's insistence on pursuing and exposing the hidden Mustafa Kazemi. Pourmohammadi's justification is weak and illogical. Killing individuals he deemed softer would have made the more radical figures more serious in their activities. However, at that time, the old political opposition forces and intellectuals were not in the midst of political confrontation; rather, the student movement and journalists and some of the reformed left political forces like Saeed Hajarian were positioned against the IRGC and the Velayat-e Faqih institution. Pourmohammadi's claim to diminish the position and impact of the victims of the chain murders aligns closely with Khamenei's statements in the Friday prayer sermons of autumn 1998, where he claimed that the Forouhar family were "low-risk" enemies and "undignified." However, in such crimes, subjects are usually chosen to start the work who, in the eyes of the designers, have little support in society and are considered problematic. However, the severe negative reaction from society showed that their calculations were wrong, and Iranian society in the 1990s had significant differences from that in the 1980s. To understand why the mentioned project was executed, one must consider the consequences, the diversion of the case in judicial proceedings, and other available information. Analyzing the signs and evaluating the existing records and information clarifies that the goal of the chain murders in the autumn of 1998 was factors such as "intimidating the forces carrying the second Khordad reform movement," "controlling political development," and "weakening Khatami's position in society." Another weakness in Pourmohammadi's narrative is Kazemi's position. How could the deputy of security, without the knowledge of the security deputy and without his presence, deploy operational groups of the Ministry of Intelligence for killings? Such an event contradicts Pourmohammadi's claim that the murders were not self-directed. He also does not explain how, if he had no role in those crimes, he was in conversation with the perpetrators and they shared their plan with him. Overall, Pourmohammadi's words revive the discussion of the chain murders and, beyond that, the issue of how decision-making and decision-making occurs in the structure of the assassination and killing of political opponents, religious minority leaders, and dissidents, making him more vulnerable due to his participation in these crimes.