Skip to main content
France - Iran

France to send back Iranian assassin after Reiss return

France decided Monday to send home an Iranian agent it had jailed for life for the murder of a former Iranian prime minister, two days after Tehran freed young French academic Clotilde Reiss.

AFP
Advertising

Iranian Ali Vakili Rad was jailed for stabbing Shapour Bakhtiar to death at his home outside Paris in August 1991. Bakhtiar was the last prime minister to serve under Shah Momhammad Reza Pahlavi who was deposed by the 1979 Islamic revolution.

 
Vakili Rad had recently asked for parole.

 
Although a court is due to rule on the parole request on Tuesday, an aide to Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said a deportation order would be signed later Monday, paving the way for his release and return home.

The decision came after Reiss returned to Paris on Sunday at the end of a 10-month ordeal in Iran.

Both Paris and Tehran have dismissed speculation by French media and the Socialist opposition that the release is part of a deal involving Vakili Rad.

Another controversial case saw Iranian national Engineer Majid Kakavand, who had been arrested in March 2009 at the request of Washington, sent home last Friday.

While Iran hailed the French court's decision on the Kakavand case as "a positive point in Franco-Iranian relations, " Vakili Rad's lawyer Sorin Margulis said the Reiss affair "did nothing but delay my client's release".

In September, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had linked Reiss's release to the fate of Iranian nationals held in French jails but Sarkozy had vowed that there would be no swap.

 

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.