Witness Says PanAm 103 Bombing Ordered by Khomeini, Planned by Velayati, London Daily Telegraph, July 8 

Relatives of the Lockerbie bombing victims called for a Government inquiry yesterday into new evidence that Iran might have been responsible for the attack that killed 270 people… The information, reported in Der Spiegel, the German magazine, comes from a former Iranian spy…

Abolghassem Mesbahi, the co-founder of the Iranian intelligence service, is said to have told German investigators… the attack was planned by Ali Akbar Velyati, Iran's Foreign Minister, and Abu Nidal, the Libyan terrorist…

[The London Times reported on July 8 that … Mr. Mesbahi was indisputably a senior figure in the Vevak secret police and is regarded by the Germans as a credible witness. Identified only as Source C, he testified in the Berlin trial this year of a group of Iranian hitmen accused, and sentenced, for the murder of Kurdish dissidents.

Mr. Mesbahi's inside knowledge allowed the German judges to declare that the higher echelons of the Iranian leadership knew about the plot to kill the Kurds in a Berlin restaurant. That triggered a crisis between Iran and the European Union which is still simmering.]

(Another) Witness Against Iran, The Boston Globe Editorial, July 7

Two suspected terrorists were brought into this country recently to stand trial or give evidence in lethal attacks on Americans.…

[Mir Amal] Kansi's confession and everything known about him indicate that he was not working for a state sponsor of terrorism when he calmly walked from car to car with an assault rifle, shooting CIA employees who were going to work.

The case of [Hani Abdel Rahim Hussein] Sayegh is a very different matter, one that has serious implications for US foreign policy…

Because Sayegh's phone conversations were tapped in Canada before his arrest, the United States now possesses intelligence information that incriminates the government of Iran in the Dhahran bombing. So even if Sayegh was a minor figure in the Dhahran plot … his trail has led to the regime in Tehran.

Now the question is: What should be done if the evidence of Iranian sponsorship is limited to intelligence intercepts? The answer should be a public campaign to persuade the rest of the world that multilateral economic and diplomatic sanctions against Tehran would be the wisest way of dissuading the ruling mullahs from sponsoring terrorism.

Two Tehran Torturers In Austria On Secret Mission, Iran Zamin News Agency, July 6 

Two terrorist agents of the clerical regime, both high-ranking officials in Tehran's Evin Prison who have been directly involved in the torture and execution of numerous political prisoners in recent years, are currently in Austria on a secret assignment as special guests of the Iranian embassy in Vienna. One of the two, who is known as Ruhollah, is a notorious interrogator in Evin Prison's Branch 6.

The report from sources close to the Iranian Resistance, identified the two officials' host in Vienna as Mohammd Hossein Ashtiani, an Iranian diplomat-terrorist who is also a member of the Ministry of Intelligence (secret police). The two agents, sent to Europe to identify Iranian refugees as part of a terrorist plan, are staying at Vienna's Ambassador Hotel, room numbers 414 and 405.

Their presence prompted an emphatic protest by the national Council of Resistance of Iran, which demanded in a statement that "the Austrian government, judicial and police authorities immediately arrest and prosecute the two terrorist torturers and executioners."

Religious Repression's Days Are Numbered, Miami Herald, July 6 

QOM, Iran -- During a campaign speech by Mohammed Khatami,100 religious students heckled him until he left the stage. During the election season, two ayatollahs from opposite ends of religious thought began to avoid each other after vociferous, public arguments over the direction of the country.

Now Qom has to grapple with a chilling message from the public: The sweeping election victory by … Khatami means that its old ways of running the government have failed. … in the aftermath of the election, some say the reign of Qom's mullahs is being challenged. Tension has risen sharply….

Asked for his advice to the new president, Ardabili, Iran's chief judge for the first eight years of the revolution,… forecast trouble ahead for Khatami if the president becomes a reformer.

Back to Brief on Iran