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The wounded Sahraroudi, who was apparently hit by a stray bullet, was not as dazed as he seemed. Just before the police arrived, a witness later recounted, he was talking on the sidewalk to a man who fit Moustafavi's description. The man drove off on a red Suzuki motorbike. Apparently, he was carrying the murder weapons; the next day two silencer-equipped pistols were found in a garbage dump along with a bloodstained windbreaker and the bill of sale for the Suzuki Sahraroudi had purchased six months earlier.
Nothing about the murder scene made sense. There was no sign of forcible entry. The furniture seemed to have been rearranged after the crime. "Bozorgian and Sahraroudi told us someone had forced their way into the room and opened fire," says a senior Austrian-government official. "They lied. By all appearances, the murderers were inside the room at the time of the crime."
Within hours, police had recovered the murder weapons, had one suspect in custody (Bozorgian) and a second in the hospital, and knew the identity of the third. They had a cassette recording of the conversations before the murder and of the gunshots. By the morning of July 14, they had interrogated Bozorgian and Sahraroudi and had found enough "important discrepancies" to detain them both.
Nonetheless, they reported there was "no reason" to hold Bozorgian, who was released the day after the crime and went straight to the Iranian embassy. Sahraroudi was taken to the embassy on July 21, after recovering from his bullet wound. Police dutifully returned to him an envelope containing $9,000 and his diplomatic passport, which he was seen handing to Bozorgian shortly after the murder. Next day Sahraroudi was escorted by police to the airport and flew to Tehran. There he was reportedly given a hero's welcome. He has since been promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the Revolutionary Guards and heads the intelligence directorate of its covert-action branch.
Four months after the crime, the Austrian state prosecutor issued arrest warrants for Sahraroudi, Bozorgian and Moustafavi. Police made a show of cordoning off the Iranian embassy in Vienna on the theory that Bozorgian might still be holed up there, but the cordon was quietly withdrawn a few weeks later. In January 1992, Austrian authorities sent a 16-page inquiry to Tehran, seeking information on the case. The Iranians have never replied, but that has not stopped Austria from maintaining cordial diplomatic relations and signing commercial contracts with the mullahs.
Wolfgang Schallenberg, secretary-general of the Austrian foreign ministry, denies there was any pressure from Tehran to release the suspects. Says he: "The police made their determination according to the information available to them at the time." But another top-level Vienna bureaucrat privately points out what may be a more compelling reason for Austria's laxity: "No country wants to prosecute a terrorist case. It's a threat to your government, to your stability, to your penal system. A convicted terrorist faces a life sentence, which means in Austria at least 15 years. That means 15 years you are at risk."
Sharafkandi: Last Supper