Dr. Ghassemlou was a resolute advocate of the rights of the Kurdish nation and a determined leader. Although he did not see war as an end in itself, he did regard armed struggle as a legitimate means to defend the integrity of the Kurdish people.

Furthermore, given the denial of Kurdish rights by successive regimes in Iran and their use of military violence to crush any form of political organising in Kurdistan, Dr. Ghassemlou regarded armed struggle as a necessity to achieve national liberation. However, he always gave negotiations a chance, and willingness to negotiate to achieve peace was not regarded by him as a sign of weakness, but rather as part of strategy of nurturing a peaceful political culture based on rational deliberation to reach agreement and to find just solutions to political issues.

After several months of attempts to persuade the post-revolution regime to accept the political demands of the Kurdish national liberation movement, which at that time consisted of autonomy for Kurdistan and democracy for Iran, Dr. Ghassemlou soon realised that the new regime only tries to by time in order to rebuild its army with the aim to reoccupy Kurdistan. The reoccupation of Kurdistan marked the beginning of a long and bitter war.

Dr. Ghassemlou had been saying for years that the war had been imposed on the Kurdish people by the Islamic Republic of Iran. He argued, contrary to the understanding of the Islamic Republic, that the war was not a zero-sum game and that, sooner or later, the Kurdish question would have to be solved trough negotiations and peacefully, and Kurdish demands be accommodated within such a framework.

In 1989, when Dr. Ghassemlou was in Europe to attend a congress of the Socialist International, Tehran contacted him and proposed negotiations with the KDPI.

The KDPI accepted the offer. The first round of talks took place on 12 July 1989 in Vienna. The Tehran delegation consisted of Mohammed Jafar Sahraroudi, Hadji Moustafawi, and Amir Mansur Bozorgian.

The PDKI had a two-man delegation; Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and his aide Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar (KDPI representative in Europe). A Kurdish university lecturer in Vienna, Fadhil Rassoul, who had acted as mediator was also present in the negotiations.


On 13 July, the second day of the negotiations, at the place where the negotiations took place, Dr. Ghassemlou was killed by three bullets fired at very close range. His aide Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar was hit by eleven bullets and Fadhil Rassoul by five bullets.

The next day, at about 7:30 p.m., Vienna police discovered the bullet-riddled bodies of Dr. Ghassemlou, Ghaderi-Azar and Rassoul. Within hours, the police had recovered the murder weapons, detained two suspects and identified a third.

The two detainees were Mohammad Jaafar Sahraroudi, later known to be a brigadier-general of the Revolutionary Guards and commander of the Guards’ Ramezan Garrison in Iranian Kurdistan, and Amir Mansour Bozorgian, an under-cover officer of Iran’s secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

Moustafawi succeeded in escaping. Sahraroudi was questioned by Austrian police and released shortly after. Bozorgian, when he was released after 24 hours in police custody, took refuge in the Iranian Embassy.

Under pressure from Iran, the Austrian government decided to take the easy route: rather than investigate the murders and put the assassins on trial, the Austrian authorities sent the two suspects back to Tehran. They were even escorted to Vienna airport under police protection.

On 19 July the KDPI announces that then Deputy Secretary-General, Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi, becomes the new Secretary-General. (Dr. Sharafkandi was assassinated too on 17 September, 1992 by Iranian agents in Berlin.)

Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and Abdullah Ghaderi-Azar were buried on 20 July in Paris.

Those who ordered the murder of Dr. Ghassemlou were:

Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran (who succeed Ayatollah Khomeini after his death in 1989).


Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, served as President of Iran from 17 August, 1989 to 1997 and is currently serving as the Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran.


Ali Akbar Velayati, Foreign Minister of Iran from 15 December 1981 to 20 August 1997, currently an Advisor in International Affairs to the Supreme Leader.


Ali Akbar Fallahiyan, Intelligence Minister from 1984 to 1989, who is on Interpol’s wanted list in connection with the Assassination of Dr. Ghassemlou’s successor, Dr. Sharafkandi.


The Role of the Current President of Iran in the Assassination of Dr. Ghassemlou

Austrian newspapers reported that Austrian authorities have classified documents showing that Iran’s current president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, may have played a key role in the assassination of Dr. Ghassemlou. The daily Der Standard reported that Austria’s Interior Ministry and the public prosecutor’s office are in possession of documents pointing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s involvement in the assassination of Dr. Ghassemlou.

It was Brigadier General Sahraroudi who had recruited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a team leader in the assassinations. While Sahraroudi commanded the “on-site” team that carried out the killings in the flat where the talks with the KDPI delegation were being held, Ahmadinejad was leading the support team that took care of logistics and escape routes. He received the weapons and ammunition for the operation from the Iranian embassy in Vienna, which were smuggled to Vienna in diplomatic pouches.

Ahmadinejad’s official biography notes that he was stationed in Ramezan Garrison near Kermanshar in iranian Kurdistan, from 1986, as an officer of the Revolutionary Guards and later joined the Special Brigade of the Guards, an elite force trained to carry out attacks beyond Iran’s borders.

In a separate development, Austrian Green Party leader Peter Pilz has said that he wants a warrant issued for the arrest of Ahmadinejad. Pilz said he had received information showing that Ahmadinejad allegedly travelled to the Austrian capital a few days before the slayings to deliver the murder weapons to the assassins. Austrian authorities have said the assassins entered Austria with Iranian diplomatic passports.

Pilz said that an Iranian journalist was contacted in 2001 by one of the alleged assassins, described as a former revolutionary guard. After having contacted the journalist, the assassin mysteriously died.

”The descriptions of the informant contained details of the scene (of the slayings) which could only have come from someone who was there,” Pilz said in an interview. He said the gunman’s account, which included “very convincing” evidence implicating Ahmadinejad, was turned over at the time to Austria’s federal counterterrorism agency.

The Austrian public prosecutor’s office told the press that the evidence will be reviewed in 2005. However, thus far the evidence has not been reviewed by the public prosecutor.