Vakili Rad back in Iran

Iranian national Ali Vakili Rad arrived in Tehran on Tuesday after being freed from a jail term in France for murdering a former Iranian prime minister. Controversy continues over whether his release was tied to the return of French national Clotilde Reiss three days earlier.

AFP

Vakili Rad was greeted in Tehran late Tuesday by two senior officials. Giving the victory sign, he promised he would speak about his years in prison near Paris, where he served 16 years for stabbing and strangling Shapour Bakhtiar in August 1991.

The French Socialist Party claims that the release is part of a deal involving Reiss.

“To say that nothing had been offered in return” for Reiss’s return to France amounts to “taking us for fools,” said French Socialist Party spokesperson Benoît Hamon.

But both French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Vakili Rad’s lawer have denied charges that an exchange took place.