Fearing the exposure of other crimes perpetrated by this dreaded apparatus and to prevent any disruption in the suppression of dissidents, however, Khatami has prevented the arrest of these two individuals and a number of other senior officials and only authorized the arrest of 25 individuals who are mostly among the Ministry's low-ranking personnel.
To this end, immediately after the Ministry issued a statement, Khatami sent a message to the torturers and henchmen in the Ministry, describing them as "selfless, dignified and honorable," "the most honest and loyal force" and "the source of service and creators of great epics." In order to encourage them to continue their assault on the lives and properties of the people, he added: "You should not feel despair."
Sharifzadeh and Senobari accompanied by the Intelligence Minister and several other director generals of the Ministry met Khatami some time ago, before the start of the recent murders. At the time, Khatami described them as "hard-working and selfless" and "the precious assets of the country."
A supreme committee, consisting of mullahs' leader Ali Khamenei, President Khatami, ex-President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Intelligence Minister Ghorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi, his predecessor Ali Fallahian, Revolutionary Guards Corps Commandant General Rahim Safavi, GC Chief of Staff Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr and former deputy to the Intelligence Minister Hejazi, has been informed fully of these murders or supervised the killings.
The Intelligence Ministry and those running this terrorist network are responsible for numerous other crimes against the Iranian people and assassinations of dissidents abroad. Mohammad Hejazi is a key figure in extra-territorial killings, including the assassination of Professor Kazem Rajavi in April 1990 in Geneva. In 1993, he went to France to receive from French authorities two of Prof. Rajavi's killers.
One of the most ruthless officials of the clerical regime, Sharifzadeh was in charge of security for the Prosecutor's Office and headed the Evin prison's ward 209 hit squad. He was directly involved in the massacre of political prisoners in 1988. Mojahedin prisoners condemned to death are held in this ward.
National Council of Resistance President Massoud Rajavi called on all governments, parties and human rights organizations to send an international fact-finding mission to Iran to investigate the recent murders as well as hundreds of other terrorist actions by the clerical regime in and out of Iran in previous years, and identify and introduce those ordering and perpetrating these crimes. Mr. Rajavi said Khatami and other officials of the regime must not be allowed to conceal their crimes as an attempt to escape domestic and international repercussions of their atrocities.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
January 8, 1999
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