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Meanwhile, the French police had finally found Bakhtiar's body and put out international arrest warrants. Boyerahmadi had disappeared without a trace. Eventually Azadi and Vakili made their way to Geneva, where Azadi met his contact and was whisked out of the country. Vakili, however, was picked up by Swiss police on Aug. 21, while wandering lost and abandoned along the banks of Lake Leman. He was extradited to France the next month.
Interrogated by Bruguiere, Vakili admitted he was present at the murder scene but denied any connection to the Iranian government. Yet the judge was already tracing the link through France's computerized national telephone system, which automatically stores a record of every call. By running a computer analysis on 20,000 calls made from public phones along the escape route -- particularly the booth where the wallet was found -- investigators were able to zero in on a few key numbers called by the fleeing suspects.
Two of these numbers led to apartments in Istanbul linked to a certain Mesut Edipsoy. An Iranian-born Turk, Edipsoy had rented one of the flats for two Iranians suspected of involvement in the plot and allowed them to use his own apartment as well. According to the prosecutor's report, the Iranians requested that Edipsoy procure the falsified Turkish passports that the killers used.
Although Turkish police let Edipsoy slip away, the authorities were more helpful when it came to letting the French analyze phone calls from his apartments. A Paris number dialed from Istanbul led investigators to a woman who admitted working for Iran's intelligence agency, VEVAK. She said the call had come from her case officer, who was seeking confirmation of Bakhtiar's death on Aug. 7, one day before the crime was discovered.
Before and just after the killing, calls were made from the same Istanbul apartment to the telecommunications ministry and to another Tehran number used by the Iranian secret service. Other calls were made to the headquarters of Iran's IRIB network, which is believed to provide cover for intelligence operations. Still more were made to Geneva hotels, where, according to Bruguiere's findings, members of the killers' alleged support team were staying. French investigators say these calls connected the Istanbul apartments, which served as logistical bases for the assassination, to the killers, Iranian intelligence and the Iranian government.
The paper trail provided other links. Combing through thousands of visa applications, French authorities found forms submitted by Vakili and Azadi. Their applications had been endorsed by a French electronics company called Syfax. Officials of the company said they had intervened at the request of Iranian businessman Massoud Hendi, a nephew of the Ayatullah Khomeini and a former Paris bureau chief for Iranian television.