June
19, 2009
VIENNA, Austria, — New testimony, presented
Thursday in Vienna, has again linked Iran's
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the murder of a
Kurdish opposition leader and two aides in the
Austrian capital in 1989.
A German arms dealer told Italian anti-Mafia
officers on April 6, 2006 that he had supplied
Ahmadinejad with weapons in Vienna,www.ekurd.net
shortly before Abdul
Rahman Ghassemlou's assassination, according to the
statement.
Ghassemlou, the leader of the Democratic Party of
Kurdistan -- an Iranian opposition party outlawed by
Tehran -- was killed on July 13, 1989 by commandos
who were never apprehended.
Iran however has always denied any involvement in
the killings.
In the testimony, presented to the press Thursday by
the Green party spokesman on security Peter Pilz,www.ekurd.net
the German said he was
in constant contact with Iranian intelligence
services in 1989 regarding arms deals.
Shortly before the killing, he also delivered half a
dozen light weapons to a meeting at the Iranian
embassy in Vienna, in which Ahmadinejad took part.
"The third meeting took place at the Iranian embassy
in the first week of July 1989," said the German
arms dealer, according to a copy of the testimony
presented by Pilz.
At this meeting were three Iranians, including "a
certain Mohamed, who later became president of the
Republic of Iran," he added.
This Mohamed "appeared to me to be a weapons expert
(and) was very interested, indeed excited, almost
enthralled by the weapons," he also said.
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Former KDPI Kurdish leader Dr.Abdul Rahman Qassemlou
(Qasimlo, Ghassemlou), assassinated in Vienna 1989.
Photo: KURDNET Archive
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A new
testimony, presented Thursday in Vienna, has again
linked Ahmadinejad to
the murder of a Kurdish opposition leader and two
aides in the Austrian capital in 1989. |
|
The German gave this
statement in the presence of Austrian police
officers while serving a sentence for arms
trafficking in Trieste, Italy. His testimony was
then passed on to the Austrian authorities,
according to Pilz.
"This document fully supports the serious suspicion
that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supplied the weapons that
were used in the killings," the Green deputy added.
The Vienna prosecutor's office confirmed that it had
the German's statement in its possession.
"We have had this testimony for a while and we have
studied it," a spokeswoman, Michaela Schnell, told
AFP.
"But it was not deemed sufficient to justify
suspicions," she added.
In July 2005, Pilz already presented the testimony
of an unnamed Iranian journalist who said he had a
detailed account of Ghassemlou's assassination from
one of the supposed members of the hit-squad --
Revolutionary Guard General Nasser Taghipour -- who
died in 2002.
In it, Taghipour apparently implicated Ahmadinejad.
Former Iranian president Abolhassan Bani Sadr,
exiled near Paris, also said he had met the
journalist with Pilz and received a written account
in Farsi of the affair.
But Austrian police were never allowed by the French
authorities to hear the witness, according to Pilz.
The Austrian authorities, who maintain close
economic ties with Iran,www.ekurd.net
have never confirmed or
denied whether Iran's current president was in
Vienna at the time of Ghassemlou's assassination.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
AFP
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