Iran Envoy to Bonn Helped Take U.S. Hostages in ’79

The newly designated Iranian ambassador to West Germany has been identified by the United States as a participant in the taking of American diplomats held hostage in Tehran in 1979, sparking a complaint to the Bonn government by the State Department, U.S. officials said today.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said West Germany had granted approval for Iran to send to Bonn as its envoy Mehdi Ahari Mostafavi, who was associated with the revolutionary guards who guarded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran while Americans were held captive there.

The hostages were held 444 days until their release in January, 1981.

The United States learned of the appointment after West Germany agreed in August to accept the Iranian as ambassador, the officials said.

The United States complained to West German officials after the Iranian envoy was accepted by the Bonn government, the officials said.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz was said to have repeated the concern during a meeting Thursday with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, whose reaction was not known.

The United States and West Germany were involved in a terrorism-related controversy earlier this year, when Mohammed Ali Hamadi, a Middle Easterner suspected of involvement in the hijacking of a TWA jet in Beirut in 1985, was arrested in Frankfurt.

The United States urged West Germany to turn Hamadi over for prosecution in the United States. West German officials, concerned that Hamadi’s extradition would increase their country’s vulnerability to terrorism, decided to keep Hamadi’s case before West German courts.