Swiss Link Iranian Government to Assassination of Rebel Leader

Swiss justice authorities Friday charged that Iranian government agencies directly planned and carried out the assassination in Switzerland of resistance leader Kazem Radjavi.

Radjavi, 56, was gunned down April 24 by two masked men in the small town of Coppet on Lake Geneva.

The brother of Massoud Radjavi, head of the Iraq-based Khalq resistance movement, Kazem acted as a lobbyist at U.N. human rights meetings against the fundamentalist regime in Tehran.

A statement by Swiss investigating magistrates Friday said there was evidence that 13 people had taken part in “minutely planning the killing” beginning in January.

It said assassination team members with Iranian government service passports--”all issued on the same date”--flew between Tehran and Geneva on Iran Air and stayed at hotels in and around Geneva.

“At the current stage of the investigation, police have collected various evidence that one or more official Iranian agencies were directly involved in the assassination of Kazem Radjavi,” the statement said.

“It appears that the actual assassination squad comprised four persons,” it said. “The investigation has shown that several persons left Geneva by air for Vienna less than two hours after the murder.”

Police believe the two men who gunned Radjavi down had passports issued in the “almost certainly false” names of Yadollah Samadi and Mohammad Said Rezvani, the statement said.