Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[simple]

Austrian links Iran leader to Kurd killing
AFP via Kurdish Media ^ / 2005 Jul 2

Vienna, July 2 (Reuters): An outspoken Austrian politician has accused Iran’s newly elected President of aiding the 1989 assassination of a Kurdish opposition leader in Vienna, the interior ministry said today.

But the ministry said it was not investigating the charge.

Austrian Green Party politician Peter Pilz said he had information implicating Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 1989 assassination of Iranian exile Kurdish leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and two other Kurdish opposition politicians in the Austrian capital.

Several weeks ago Pilz, the Greens’ security spokesman, gave Austria’s interior ministry documents that he says support the allegation, said ministry spokesman Major Rudolf Gollia.

“These documents were then forwarded to the state prosecutor’s office, and the matter is in their hands,” Gollia said, adding the ministry was not investigating the matter. “Until now we have not received a request from the prosecutor’s office to begin a formal investigation,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be one in the future.”

A senior aide to Ahmadinejad in Tehran said: “This is not even worth commenting on. It is like the other accusations and there will be more accusations.”

In an interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, Pilz said his accusation was based on information he received from an “extraordinarily credible” informer, an Iranian journalist living in France who Pilz calls only “witness D”.


(Excerpt) Read more at kurdishmedia.com ...