On eve of trial for Naghdi's murderers, Rajavi calls for closure of mullahs' embassy in Italy

Rome's Court will convene on Monday to prosecute a number of those charged with March 16, 1993, assassination of Mohammad Hussein Naghdi, the representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Italy. Welcoming the trial, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the NCR President, urged the Italian Government and Judiciary to exercise maximum decisiveness by arresting and punishing all the perpetrators of this crime.

Noting the Italian Judiciary's verification of direct involvement of the regime's embassy in Mr. Naghdi's assassination, Mr. Rajavi urged the Government of Italy to close down the embassy whose task is but espionage and terror. Mr. Rajavi added: A band of murderers must not be allowed to turn Italy's soil into a hunting ground for their terrorist activities.

Three years after the assassination of Mr. Naghdi, investigation confirms that the Khomeini regime's terrorist-diplomats in Rome planned and organized the murder. Hamid Parandeh, a member of the regime's ministry of intelligence is one of the masterminds and perpetrators. He was transferred to the embassy in Rome only three months before Naghdi's murder and was directly involved in the scheme.

Previously, Parandeh worked for two years at the regime's embassy in Bonn. He was specifically assigned to the embassy's Third Floor, a section that has acted as one of the headquarters of the mullahs' intelligence ministry in planning terrorist operations and intelligence-gathering in Europe. Before being dispatched on his criminal mission to Italy, Parandeh was an official in the office of Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign minister, who personally intervened to facilitate and expedite his transfer.

Unfortunately, it is reported that Parandeh's case is going to be closed because of diplomatic immunity. Not punishing an identified murderer will only embolden the mullahs in their terrorist ventures in Europe.

The Italian public, parliament and political parties will certainly not accept such treatment of murderers. As the Democratic Left Party has reiterated in its statement: Italy must sponsor a decisive and firm policy in defense of human rights in Iran and the world, and not allow our country to become the scene of terrorist activities, particularly when foreign diplomats are implicated. In such instances, legal instruments allow the expulsion of foreign diplomatic personnel implicated in the crime.

The Iranian Resistance demands that the Court of Rome prevent the closing of Parandeh's case. It also urges Italian officials to insist on lifting of Parandeh's diplomatic immunity in Italy so that he could be brought before justice.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris
July 13, 1996

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