Swiss Arrest Embassy Worker in Bakhtiar Murder, Iran Says

Iran said Wednesday that Swiss police have arrested a member of its embassy staff in Bern in connection with the assassination in Paris of former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry demanded the man’s immediate release and warned the Swiss government not to turn him over to France.

A ministry spokesman, quoted by Tehran Radio, said charges of the man’s involvement in Bakhtiar’s murder at his home outside Paris last August are “absolutely false.” Bakhtiar’s secretary also was stabbed to death.

The radio said the man, who was arrested on a warrant issued by a French judge, is suspected of helping the killers travel to Paris.

The unnamed man was described as an administrative employee of the Iranian Embassy in Bern.

The Swiss charge d’affaires, summoned to Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday night, was told that his government is responsible for any adverse consequences of the arrest on the two countries’ relations, he added.

It is the fourth arrest in connection with the murder of Bakhtiar, the shah of Iran’s last prime minister. Bakhtiar in exile led one of the many factions opposing Tehran’s Islamic government.

Tehran has repeatedly denied it was involved, blaming the murder on infighting among the opposition groups.

Iran’s ambassador in Bern, Hossein Malaek, denied Sept. 1 charges by the opposition that one of the killers was hiding in his embassy.

Ali Vakili Rad, one of the three men who last visited Bakhtiar on Aug. 6, was arrested in Geneva 15 days later and extradited to France, where he was charged with murder.

Massoud Hendi, arrested in a Paris hotel Sept. 17, was charged with arranging for two of the three suspected killers to obtain French visas.

The other detainee, a woman, was alleged to have been a member of Iranian intelligence and to have helped the killers in Paris.

On Oct. 22, a French judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Hossein Sheikhattar, an adviser to Iran’s Post and Telecommunication Minister Mohammed Gharazi, as an accomplice in the murder.