Word: bakhtiar
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...monumental impact across the Islamic world may appear to have been inevitable. It seemed like anything but certain destiny, however, to those of us on board the Air France 747 taking Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini from Paris to Tehran that morning in 1979. The exiled Shah's Prime Minister, Shahpour Bakhtiar, still controlled the country and commanded the armed forces, and our immediate concern was whether the air force might decide that the best way to solve the problem of what to do with the radical fundamentalist leader would be to blow us out of the sky. That threat didn...
...would take eight tumultuous days before Khomeini could wrest power from Bakhtiar, but already in his arrival speech he abandoned earlier hints of willingness to share power and demanded that the Prime Minister get out. Tipped off that the military was going to arrest him, Khomeini broadcast an appeal that brought tens of thousands of Iranians into the streets. Stores of weapons in the mosques were flowing into the hands of Khomeini loyalists, and a bloody civil war appeared almost certain...
...helpful when it came to letting the French analyze phone calls from his apartments. A Paris number dialed from Istanbul led investigators to a woman who admitted working for Iran's intelligence agency, VEVAK. She said the call had come from her case officer, who was seeking confirmation of Bakhtiar's death on Aug. 7, one day before the crime was discovered...
Another alleged co-conspirator is Zeinolabedine Sarhadi. According to Swiss border police, Sarhadi arrived in their country on Aug. 13, 1991, ostensibly to work as an archivist in the Iranian embassy. His real mission, Bruguiere claims, was to help whisk Bakhtiar's murderers out of the country. Phone data, backed up by questioning of hotel personnel and inspection of guest registers, indicate that Sarhadi was in touch with both the Istanbul base and the Geneva hotel where hit-man Azadi stayed just before his escape from the country. Sarhadi's lawyer, Nuri Albala, admits that his client's "passport arrived...
...assistant district attorney Patrick Lalande. "They will tell you that they treat their opponents abroad just as they treat them at home and that this is a purely domestic affair." Western governments do not agree but find it hard to stand up to Iran's state-backed terror. The Bakhtiar case, with a trail of evidence that leads right into Tehran's ministries, is a major test of France's resolve. The trial, which could start as soon as next June, is more likely to open in the fall and could possibly be delayed until early 1995. Given France...