Word: bakhtiar
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...Bakhtiar and his personal secretary, Fouroush Katibeh, greeted the guests in a ground-floor salon. As soon as Katibeh went to the kitchen to make tea, one of the visitors leaped at Bakhtiar and, according to the autopsy report, struck a "mortal blow" to the throat. The secretary was similarly dispatched. With two knives grabbed from the kitchen, the assailants hacked at their victims' throats, chests and arms so savagely that a knife blade was broken. An hour after arriving, Boyerahmadi calmly collected the trio's passports, and the men drove off in an orange BMW. The guards failed...
Like another trial of accused Iran-backed assassins now under way in Berlin, the Bakhtiar case will in effect put the Tehran government in the dock. Bruguiere's investigation appears to have assembled an unprecedented body of evidence linking Iranian officials to the murder of a political opponent abroad. "This case," says a French official familiar with the investigation, "marks the first time that we have so many proofs of the implication of the state in an operation of this importance." Defense lawyers contend that the evidence against their clients is flimsy, and Iranian officials vehemently deny any involvement...
...Bakhtiar: Follow the Numbers...
...trail that led French investigators to uncover the Tehran connection began with the killers' flight from the Bakhtiar murder scene on Aug. 6, 1991. The bodies of the former Prime Minister and his secretary were not discovered until the morning of Aug. 8, giving the fugitives a substantial head start. But Vakili and Azadi, who shaved off their mustaches and ditched their bloody shirts in the Bois de Boulogne, were beset by a series of mishaps after parting company with Boyerahmadi. Traveling on false Turkish passports and speaking little French, the pair hopped a train to Lyons...
Meanwhile, the French police had finally found Bakhtiar's body and put out international arrest warrants. Boyerahmadi had disappeared without a trace. Eventually Azadi and Vakili made their way to Geneva, where Azadi met his contact and was whisked out of the country. Vakili, however, was picked up by Swiss police on Aug. 21, while wandering lost and abandoned along the banks of Lake Leman. He was extradited to France the next month...