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On April 24, 1990, Rajavi, 56, was heading for his home in the Geneva suburb of Coppet. Shortly before noon, a Volkswagen Golf swerved in front of his car and sprayed the windshield with bullets. Two gunmen jumped out of a second car and methodically pumped five bullets into Rajavi's head. One of the killers leaned over and tucked a navy blue baseball cap into the door pocket. It was the third time police had found a blue baseball cap at the scene of an Iranian assassination.
Shortly after the murder, police discovered the Volkswagen at Geneva's Cointrin Airport. Authorities held up the 5:45 p.m. Iran Air flight to Tehran for two hours, while they noted the identity of every passenger. Investigators are now convinced that several members of the hit team were aboard, as well as two Iranian diplomats suspected of involvement in the killing.
By checking the passenger list against hotel registries and police records, investigators eventually identified 13 individuals believed to have taken part in the plot. All of them came to Switzerland on brand-new government-service passports, many issued in Tehran on the same date. Most listed the same personal address, Karim-Khan 40, which turns out to be an intelligence- ministry building. All 13 arrived on Iran Air flights, using tickets issued on the same date and numbered sequentially. Switzerland issued international arrest warrants for them on June 15, 1990.
On Nov. 15, 1992, French police arrested two of the suspects in Paris. France informed Switzerland last August that an extradition request would soon be granted. But on Dec. 29, French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur abruptly announced that "for reasons linked to the national interest," the two men, Moshen Sharif Esfahani and Ahmad Taheri, had been "expelled" to Tehran.
France has provided no further explanation. "The Prime Minister judged the situation, based on certain concrete facts, and decided on the appropriate action," says an adviser to Interior Minister Charles Pasqua. Denying there was any "specific threat" from Tehran, this official adds, "Of course, what we did was contrary to the extradition convention. But sometimes you just have to take exceptional measures." !
Qassemlou: In the Lion's Den
Abdelrahman Qassemlou, 59, leader of the independence-minded Iranian Kurds, arrived in Vienna on July 11, 1989, to negotiate an autonomy agreement with emissaries of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. After 10 years of fighting, the government seemed eager to reach a settlement. For two days, Qassemlou, his deputy Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar, 37, and Fadhil Rasoul, 38, a Vienna-based Iraqi Kurd serving as a mediator, talked in a borrowed apartment with interior-ministry official Mohammed Jaafari Sahraroudi and Hadji Moustafavi, a.k.a. Ladjeverdi, an intelligence operative. A third Iranian, Amir Mansour Bozorgian, stood guard at the door.
On the second day of the talks, at about 7:15 p.m., police found Sahraroudi standing in the street, clutching his bleeding arm and shouting "Help! Help!" He told police someone had broken into the apartment upstairs and shot him. While Sahraroudi was packed off to the hospital in an ambulance, the police entered the apartment. They found Qassemlou's bullet-riddled body seated in an armchair. His two associates were sprawled dead on the floor. The killers had tossed a blue baseball cap into Qassemlou's lap.