Iranian Businessman Is Killed Near His Tarzana Home : Crime: George Banafsheha’s body is found in a bullet-riddled car blocks from his residence. His watch was taken and his pockets emptied.

An Iranian businessman returning to his Tarzana home in a new Mercedes-Benz was shot to death Monday, possibly by killers who were waiting for him or robbers who had followed him from a card club where he had gone to play poker.

Los Angeles police said George Banafsheha, 33, attempted to speed away from his killers after being shot and might have been trying to reach a nearby hospital when he died of his wounds.

Banafsheha was found in his bullet-riddled car shortly after 3 a.m. about three blocks from the gated condominium community on Burbank Boulevard where he lived. The car had crashed at high speed into a telephone pole, then careened through an iron fence and struck a pickup truck in a parking lot.

It came to rest about 100 yards from the Medical Center of Tarzana.

Police said they had few leads, although the number of shots--more than 10--fired at Banafsheha suggested more than one assailant. The victim’s watch had been taken and his pockets emptied.

“It was either a robbery or a flat-out assassination,” Detective Rick Swanston said.

Friends said Banafsheha was a partner in a family-operated clothing business who would often take as much as $1,200 with him when he played poker at card clubs in the Bell Gardens-Gardena area. But they said he would not have resisted robbers.

“There was no reason to shoot him,” said Ray Razaui, who was a friend of the victim since they were roommates at Cal State Northridge. “He would have given up the money. He would not have resisted. I never saw him get in a fight in his life.”

Investigators also puzzled over what happened. They said a follow-home robbery or an ambush were both being treated as possibilities.

Swanston said Banafsheha visited a friend’s apartment in Hollywood late Sunday and said he was going to the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens to play cards.

But investigators have not verified that Banafsheha actually went to the club. Security videotapes made at the club do not show the victim, although they do not cover the entire playing area, and employees who know Banafsheha do not recall him being there, Swanston said.

George Hardie, general manager of the club, said Banafsheha was known to employees because he had been a regular but had stopped coming a year ago. “He hasn’t been in here in a long time,” Hardie said. “He bounced about 20 checks here.”

Citing the number of shots fired by the assailants and the distance between Bell Gardens and Tarzana, Bell Gardens Police Lt. Don Barclift said a follow-home robbery seemed unlikely.

“It would be a little unusual to wait while he went that far,” Barclift said.

Swanston said Los Angeles police were still pursuing the possibility that Banafsheha had gone to a card club in the area. He said investigators would also delve into the victim’s business dealings.

He said Banafsheha was apparently approached by his killers as he waited for an electronically operated security gate to open at the condominium complex in the 18100 block of Burbank Boulevard, where he lived with his wife and two young children. Assailants fired at Banafsheha at the gate and continued to shoot while he sped away. Numerous bullet holes marked the rear window and roof of the black 1992 Mercedes-Benz.

Swanston said it was possible that the assailants followed the fleeing car and robbed Banafsheha after he had crashed. He said Banafsheha had multiple bullet wounds and was probably dead before the car crashed.

Friends and neighbors of the victim expressed shock over the killing in the relatively low-crime neighborhood made up mostly of condominium developments.

Several watched as investigators conducted their hours-long investigation at the scene.

“This is not a bad area,” said a stunned George Eilenberg, the victim’s neighbor of six years. “Where are you safe today?”