Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
Memorial
Omid, a memorial in defense of human rights in Iran
One Person’s Story

Kazem Sami Kermani

About

Age: 53
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Islam (Shi'a)
Civil Status: Married

Case

Date of Killing: November 23, 1988
Location of Killing: Sasan Hospital, Tehran, Tehran Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Stabbing
Charges: Unknown charge

Human rights violations in this case

Extrajudicial killings

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979, with the murder of Parviz Sayyah Sina, an Anglican Bishop, and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 500 extrajudicial killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.(1)

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran, where one of the first assassinations, that of a Navy Officer, Shahriar Shafiq, took place in Paris in December 1979. These assassinations have taken place in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In too many cases, states have failed to guarantee the victims’ rights to the truth, justice, and remedy; states have revealed little about the assassinations and have not issued arrest warrants. Where there have been arrests and prosecutions, available information reveals a state policy of eliminating perceived enemies. 

Documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm, however, the theory of state committed crimes. In certain cases, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion (The Netherlands, 2018) or arrest (Brussels, 2020; Turkey, 2021) of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial (Paris 1980 and 1991) and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant (the Mikonos Trial in Germany) has been issued for Iran’s then-Minister of Information, Ali Fallahian and the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications, Hossein Sheikh Attar.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad, is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity who ordered the implementation of these crimes. (2). In 1997, the Berlin Criminal Court, in charge of hearing the case of the shooting of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant, officially announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s highest-ranking officials had issued the order to carry out the killings. According to the indictment, the decision to commit the murders was made in a committee called the “Special Operations Committee” composed of the President, the Minister of Information and Security (VAVAK), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representatives of the various security organs and other organizations, and finally, the Leader of the Revolution. 

Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions, and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam (“one whose blood may be spilled, whose life can be taken, without the perpetrator incurring any punishment”) and their sentence is death regardless of where they are [and where you find them].” 

More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders” (Speech broadcast on the state-run Iranian Radio and Television on August 31, 1992, quoted from Asr Iran, August 17, 2006).

Extrajudicial killings have rarely been pursued legally in Iran. The few murders that were followed up on in 1998 , which came to be known as “the Serial (Chain) Murders(3),” have brought to light the involvement and responsibility of the country’s Information officials. Several Ministry of Information agents who were defendants in the Serial Murders case, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy of extrajudicial killings and emphasized that there was planning on an annual basis to carry out these executions, for which a religious decree was issued. There was a budget allocated and there were objectives set, and those who participated in the murders were commended. In a lecture given at [the city of] Hamedan’s Bu Ali University in 1996, Sa’eed Emami, Ministry of Information Deputy Minister for Security Affairs and one of the principal defendants in the Serial Murders case – who was later said by Iranian officials to have committed suicide while in detention – had stressed that the activities of Iran’s security forces were not confined to the country’s borders: “ … We have set the security perimeter within the confines of our borders. [However,] if we see threats infiltrating inside the country from abroad, we will enlarge the perimeter.”

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1) Among the first known murders that occurred a week after the February 1979 Revolution was that of Mr. Parviz (Arastu) Sayyah Sina, the bishop of a church in the city of Shiraz. The assassination of Mr. Shahriar Shafiq, an Imperial Navy officer, in December 1979 in Paris is among the first murders committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the country. ​​These killings continued in the following years inside and outside the country and in various forms.
2) Investigations into the murder of well-known personalities in France, Germany and Switzerland have yielded evidence and documentation showing that the officials and employees of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran acted as accomplices and principals [in the killings]. In France, the Islamic Republic’s Deputy Minister of Post and Telegraph was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of former Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar and his assistant, Sorush Katibeh. In Germany (Berlin), the Islamic Republic’s security agents and agents of the Lebanese Hezbollah were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of four Kurdish opposition leaders. In connection with the latter case, German Judicial authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, the then-Minister of Information. 
3) A few days before Mr. Mokhtari’s murder, Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, leaders of the People of Iran Party, had been killed in a most heinous manner in their own home. After Mr. Mokhtari’s body was found, the body of Mohammad Ja’far Puyandeh, another well-known literary figure, was discovered in a village near the city of Karaj. These four individuals’ cases was named the “Serial Murders”.
Human rights violations

Based on the available information, some or all of the following human rights may have been violated in this case:

The right to liberty and security of the person. The right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 9.1.

The right not to be punished for any crime on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time it was committed.

UDHR, Article 11.2; ICCPR, Article 15, Article 6.2.

The right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation.

UDHR, Article 12, ICCPR, Article 17.1.

The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to change and manifest one’s religion or belief.

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 18.1, ICCPR, Article 18.2;

Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 1  and Article 6.

In its general comment 22 (48) of 20 July 1993, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee observed that the freedom to "have or to adopt" a religion or belief necessarily entailed the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one's current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one's religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.

The right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

UDHR, Article 19; ICCPR, Article 19.1 and ICCPR, Article 19.2.

The right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 21.

The right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade union for the protection of one’s interests.

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 22.1.

The right, as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, to enjoy one’s own culture or to profess and practice one’s own religion.

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 27.

The right to equality before the law and the right to equal protection of the law.

UDHR, Article 7; ICCPR, Article 26.

The right to due process

The right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a competent and impartial tribunal in accordance with law.

UDHR, Article 11.1; ICCPR, Article 14.1 and Article 14.2.

Pre-trial detention rights

The right to know promptly and in detail the nature and cause of the charges against one.

UDHR, Article 9(2); ICCPR, Article 9.2 and Article 14.3.a

The right to counsel of one’s own choosing or legal aid and the right to meet with one’s attorney in confidence

ICCPR, Article 14.3.d;

Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, Article 1 , Article 2, Article 5, Article 6, and Article 8.

The right to adequate time and facilities for the preparation of the defense case.

ICCPR, Article 14.3.b; Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, Article 8

The right not to be compelled to testify against oneself or to confess to guilt.

ICCPR, Article 14.3.g.

The right not to be subjected to torture and to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

UDHR, Article 5; ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1, and Article 2.

Trial rights

The right to a fair and public trial without undue delay.

ICCPR, Article 9.3, Article 14.1, Article 14.3.c.

The right to examine, or have examined the witnesses against one and to obtain the attendance and examination of defense witnesses under the same conditions as witnesses for the prosecution.

ICCPR, Article 14.3.e

The right to have the decision rendered in public.

ICCPR, Article 14.1.

Judgment rights

The right to appeal to a court of higher jurisdiction.

ICCPR, Article 14.5.

The right to seek pardon or commutation of sentence.

ICCPR, Article 6.4.

The right not to be tried or punished again for an offence for which one has already been convicted or acquitted.

ICCPR, Article 14.7.

Capital punishment

The inherent right to life, of which no one shall be arbitrarily deprived.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6.1; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, Article 1.1, Article 1.2.

The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

About this Case

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Information about Mr. Kazem Sami-Kermani, son of Gholamreza, is based on an electronic form sent to the Boroumand Foundation by a person familiar with this case. According to this information, he was born in Mashhad in 1935. He was married and a psychiatrist. He was also a member of the Revolutionary Movement of Iranian People, Health Minister in the provincial government; a candidate for the presidency during the first presidential election; and a representative of the Islamic Parliament. Additional information was taken from the Mihan website and a Payam-e Hajar publication.        

The Revolutionary Movement of Iranian People (JAMA) was established by several Muslim sympathizers of the National Movement, including Kazem Sami-Kermani and Habibollah Peyman. Their views favored nationalism, pro-soviet socialism, and Islam with a minor role for the latter. After the Islamic Revolution, influenced by the political atmosphere of the time, this group changed its name to the Revolutionary Movement of Iranian Moslem People. Habibollah Peyman separated from the group and founded the Fighting Moslems Movement.

According to information sent to Omid, Mr. Kazem Sami-Kermani was assassinated by a person pretending to be a patient [stabbed Mr. Sami-Kermani] with blows of a knife in his office on November 23, 1988. He died two days later in a hospital. The murderer also locked Mr. Sami-Kermani’s wife in a room.      

According to an interview with a close friend of Mr. Sami-Kermani by the Payam-e Hajar, published on November 23, 1999, authorities first announced the killing as a conspiracy to disturb the stability and security of the country. But when the body of the murderer, Mahmud Jalilian, was found in a public bath in Ahvaz, seemingly having hanged himself, authorities declared the motive for assassination to be a personal revenge. This was based on a bureaucratic dispute between the killer and Dr. Sami-Kermani in the UAE, many years before. However, according to this source, quoting officials and analyzing events of before and after the assassination, there were many reasons to reject the idea of personal revenge as a motive. According to the interviewee, when there is a personal motive and the murderer is gone, the case is closed, and there is a rush to close the case at the time. But, according to the private forensics report, the murderer was first killed and then hanged in the bath. Additionally, the family of Dr. Sami-Kermani was threatened not to pursue the case. Otherwise, there would be attempts on the lives of other members of the family.

According to the Mihan website, “Dr. Sami-Kermani, Head of the Revolutionary Movement of Iranian People and Health Minister of the Bazargan cabinet, had concluded that the gang who governed Iran consisted of a dangerous fascist group of people who drove the country to destruction. He expressed his opinions freely and criticized the regime, in spite of receiving several written and phone threats. … After the assassination of Dr. Sami-Kermani, his family complained to the judiciary of the Islamic Republic. But the case, judged by Ali Yunesi, the Intelligence Minister at the time, was announced closed without any results. At the time, it was said that the crime had been carried out by a group of Hezbollah connected to the Intelligence Ministry and that the identity of murderer(s) were known to the judge. However, by order of the Intelligence Ministry, the judge closed the case.”

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