http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2002/May_2002/serial_murderers_29502.htm
IPS-COMMUTING MURDERERS’ SENTENCES CONNECTED TO POLITICAL SITUATION
PARIS 29 May (IPS) According to Ms. Parastoo Foroohar, the new and astonishing sentence issued by the Judicial Organisation of the Armed Forces (JOAF) on the assassins of her parents is part of the present campaign of repression that sweeps in Iran.
The JOAF, deliberating behind closed doors, announced that it had commuted the death sentence on Mohammad Ja’farzadeh and Ali Mohseni, accused of having assassinated Mr. Dariush Foroohar, the leader of the secular Iranian People Party and his wife, Parvaneh, on November 1998, to ten years jail, "after the families of the victims forgave them and called for their capital punishment to be dropped", the official news agency IRNA reported.
The two were among a total of 18 officers of the Intelligence Ministry of the Islamic Republic, some of the high-rankings, who murdered the Foroohars at their residence in central Tehran, as well as three intellectuals in Mohammad Ja’far Pooyandeh, Mohammad Mokhtari and Ja’far Sharif and a political activist, Pirooz Davani.
Mr. Sa’id Emami, alias Eslami, the alleged "mastermind of the case", known as "serial murders", a senior deputy Intelligence Minister for about two decades, was reported to have committed suicide in prison by absorbing a hair removing powder, prompting numerous hilarious jokes among Iranians who not only never accepter the version of the suicide, but also insisted that those among the senior clerics who provided the religious orders for the assassinations to be identified.
Protesting to the new verdict, Ms. Parastoo said the families have "never" forgiven the killers, but had only said they were not seeking vengeance by "qesas", or the law of the Talion.
"By commuting the sentences, the authorities wants to assure their folks at the security and intelligence machinery that forms their very base of power, that they would never let them down, that the regime would always protected them", she told Iran Press Service, speaking on the phone from her house in Frankfurt, Germany.
She termed the JOAF decision a "new trick" in order to "archive once for all" the case of the serial murders and added that she would continue her struggle for the identification of all those who ordered the murders.
"The families of the victims of the serial murders did said they do not seek qesas for the culprits of this all fabricated case, but this does not mean that we have forgiven the killers", she said, adding that none of the families of the victims ever accepted the JOAF as a legal tribunal. "For that reason, we never accepted to attend the court sessions", she reminded.
"Elimination and murder of dissidents is an organised crime that has been developed, planed and executed in the body of the regime by radical and hard-line elements. Sentencing few petty executioners would never lead to the final closing of the case", she said in a communiqué signed with her brother Arash.
Dr. Karim Lahiji, the deputy president of the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said the serial murders case is not an ordinary killing to be closed, "because, he told IPS, it is a political assassination amounting to crime against humanity and therefore could be brought to justice any time".
From the outset, the case was encountering obstacles of all kinds. Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, the first lawyer for the four families and Mr. Naser Zarafshan, who took over Mrs. Ebadi, were both imprisoned and deprived of professional activities and other lawyers almost never had access to the files and some important documents, including the confessions of Mr. Emami, were deleted on the pretext that they are of highly classified nature. Then appeared on the internet the difficult images of torturing the murderers, including the wife of Mr. Emami.
"Even Mr. Khatami who, at the beginning, had promised to go to the roots of the murders and get all the culprits to be identified, regardless of their rank and position, has forgotten his promises and keeps silence", Ms. Forrohar said.
Some 100 members of parliament signed a petition calling for "further clarification on the circumstances of the murders".
Last August, the Supreme Court quashed several verdicts and called for a "re-examination of the case".
"The whole system is crumbling. It is like a wall that might fall anytime without warning", she said, answering a question by IPS asking if the new verdict has any relationship to the new wave of political crackdown orchestrated by the ruling conservatives? ENDS SERIAL MURDERS 29502