Colonel Hadi Aziz Moradi, former Commander of the Khuzestan Armored Division, was a soldier of Iran. He knew he was taking on a great risk by residing in Turkey and accepting the duties of his brother-in-arm in the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance, whom the Islamic Republic operatives had killed.

News and information regarding the assassination of Colonel Hadi Aziz Moradi was obtained from an Abdorrahman Broumand Center (ABC) interview conducted with Captain Khosro Beitollahi, an Iranian Imperial Air Force Fighter Pilot (July 7, 2022); an electronic form submitted to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center (Electronic Form) (October 2, 2021); and Turkish newspapers, including Cumhuriet (May 13, 1986) and Milliyet (December 24, 1985; May 9, 2000). Additional information about this case was obtained from the Court Decision in the case against Mr. Mas’ud Mehdiyun, one of the defendants in the 18 Tir 1359 (July 9, 1980) Uprising (August 14, 1980); Kayhan newspaper (July 12, 1980): Qiam-e Iran newspaper (January 2, 1986; December 11, 1986); Cumhuriet Turkish newspaper (October 25, 1986; February 12, 1989; March 16, 1990; February 4, 1993); Sahpur Bakhtiar interviews and speeches (Undated); and other sources.*

Colonel Hadi Aziz Moradi Kord, was born in 1938-39 in the city of Malayer in Hamedan Province, and resided in Istanbul, Turkey. He was married and had two daughters. Mr. Aziz Moradi graduated from the Military College in 1962. That same year, he completed basic training, and subsequently went through paratrooper, ranger, and special operations training in Iran and the United States. Mr. Aziz Moradi served as Second Colonel in the Army Airborne Special Forces (AASP, NOHED in Persian), and participated in the AMMA** operations in 1969, and subsequently became a senior officer. In 1978, Mr. Aziz Moradi completed [the program at] the Commander and Headquarters University. After the Islamic Revolution, and upon the dissolution of the AASP brigade, he served as Commander of the Khuzestan 92ndArmored Division. (Qiam-e Iran newspaper, January 2, 1986). He recruited and armed the sheikhs affiliated with certain Arab tribes, and recruited forces inside the brigade. (Khorassan newspaper, undated).

Because of the active and direct role he played in the failed 18 Tir 1359 Uprising (July 9, 1980) (known as the Nojeh Coup d’état), Colonel Aziz Moradi left the country in mid to late July, 1980, going first to Turkey and then to France, joining the military branch of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance, founded by Shapur Bakhtiar. (Qiam-e Iran newspaper, January 2, 1986). In the summer of 1985, after the assassination of Colonel Shahverdilu in Turkey, Colonel Aziz Moradi went to Turkey and took up residence in an apartment in Istanbul that he had rented under his nephew’s name, and was travelling back and forth between Paris and Turkey. (Milliyet newspaper, December 24, 1985; ABC interview, July 7, 2022; Cumhuriet newspaper, May 13, 1986).

Starting in the summer of 1985 until his death, he was in charge of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance in Turkey, and coordinated domestic operations and intelligence gathering in Iran, contact with members of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance and individuals opposed to the regime, and contact with various tribes inside Iran. (ABC interview, July 7, 2022). He was also in charge of the military branch of the Movement’s rescue teams for getting dissenters out of Iran, and was also responsible for training the Iranian opposition members residing in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. (Mahnameh Artesh (“Army Monthly”), April 1986; Cumhuriet, May 13, 1986).

Colonel Aziz Moradi was popular and well-liked by the people who knew him and according to one of his brothers-in-arm, “he was a courageous and extremely resourceful officer. He was humble, serious, a great manager and a hard worker”. (ABC interview, July 7, 2022).

“18 Tir 1359 Uprising” (known as the “Nojeh Coup d’état”)

The architects of the July 9, 1980 uprising (also called the “Nojeh Coup d’état”) were veterans, active servicemen, and civilians, including members of the Iran Party (social democratic and the backbone of the National Front of Iran), and armed tribal warriors who had joined forces in an underground organization, the "Saving Iran's Great Uprising" (NEQAB or NEGHAB). According to their initial statement, the group was concerned about the plight of the country in the throes of clerics, and believed in an independent Iran and national sovereignty within the framework of a democracy, and in the separation of religion and state. They began their activities with the goal of overthrowing the theocracy by force. Neqab announced its existence in April 1980 with a statement in which they said, "Our country with its illustrious millennial civilization is going adrift and is on the verge of disintegration. Displacement, homelessness, and statelessness threaten the thirty-six million inhabitants of our homeland."  The Organization announced its goals to be “the complete destruction and definitive annihilation of the rule of the mullahs and their hoodlums … establishment of an authentic nationalist government … undertaking to create a non-chaotic democracy in order to create an environment where various ideologies can be presented … and to turn over the reign of the country to the majority after a very short period …” ***

The National Movement of the Iranian Resistance

The National Movement of the Iranian Resistance (also called the National Resistance Movement) is an organization opposed to the Islamic republic, established on August 5, 1980, in Paris, France, by Shapur Bakhtiar, leader of the Iran Party and the last prime minister of the Monarchy. It was inspired by the National Resistance Movement that was established after the fall of Mohammad Mossadegh’s government in 1953. Bakhtiar invited all nationalist groups and individuals to unite their forces around one political platform under the umbrella of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance. In its “National Movement of the Iranian Resistance Intellectual Principles and Political Platform”, published on January 15, 1981, the National Resistance Movement announced its aim to be the establishment of democracy and a system based and predicated upon the free will of the people, so that citizens could be provided with the opportunity for a free, fruitful, and valuable life. The founder of the Movement insisted upon a pluralistic political structure, and considered intellectual and practical agreement with nationalism, democracy, and social justice as the as the necessary conditions for membership in the Movement. After its establishment, the Movement proposed a short-term and temporary plan consisting of four clauses: 1. The overthrow of the newly-established Islamic Republic of Iran; 2. Establishment of security through the creation of a coalition government “composed of the nationalist opposition that shall have as its priority the realization of freedom and independence”; 3. The repair of an economy “that is on the verge of bankruptcy during the dark rule [of theocracy]”; and 4. Establishment of a Constitutive Assembly, carrying out free elections, and turning over the country’s affairs to the government chosen by the people’s elected representatives.

In the early years of its activity, a wide array of Iranians both inside and outside Iran either joined or supported the National Resistance Movement. Among its principal activities were organizing the political and military arms of the Movement in various countries and in Iran; establishing contact with those opposed to the regime inside Iran and striving to organize them and to gather political and military intelligence; organizing assemblies and protests; disseminating Iran-related news, especially information regarding human rights violations and arbitrary executions inside and outside the country through publication of books and magazines (Nehzat weekly magazine and Qiam-e Iran weekly); establishment of radio broadcasts in various countries including Iraq and Egypt; conducting interviews with foreign and Persian language media; corresponding with human rights institutions including the United Nations (for the purpose of conducting a referendum on the Islamic Republic under the auspices of the United Nations and/or reporting on the mass murder of political prisoners in the summer of 1988); and promoting human rights and democracy. As time went by, civil struggles became more important as part of the Resistance Movement’s activities. The first such civil movement that took shape at the Resistance Movement’s initiative were anti-war protests. On May 17, 1985, The Movement dispatched a call to companies and offices in Iran that had a fax machine, and called on the people through radio broadcasts and telephone calls to take part in peaceful demonstrations against the regime and protest the continuation of the war with Iraq. It was said that hundreds of thousands of people in various towns answered the call and participated in the demonstrations.

In the first decade of its establishment, a large number of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance members were threatened and assassinated, including its founders Shapur Bakhtiar and Abdorrahman Boroumand, who were killed in Paris in 1991, and several officers of the Resistance Movement’s military arm, who were victims of extrajudicial killings in the first two decades after the Revolution.

Background of Extrajudicial Killings by the Islamic Republic of Iran

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 and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 540 killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran 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 most cases there has not been much published and the local authorities have not issued arrest warrants. But 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 or arrest of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Iran’s Minister of Information.

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. 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 and their sentence is death regardless of where they are.” 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”

At the same time, various political, judicial, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have, at different times and occasions, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy for these extrajudicial killings and in some cases their implementation*.

Threats against Mr. Hadi Aziz Moradi and his Death

Mr. Hadi Aziz Moradi was assassinated in Istanbul, Turkey, on December 23, 1985. (Cumhuriet, May 13,  and October 25, 1986; Milliyet, May 9, 2000).

According to the Cumhurriet newspaper report, quoting a representative of the Azerbaijani community in Turkey who had met with Mr. Aziz Moradi a few days before his assassination, “he had been receiving threatening phone calls and letters since the summer of 1985, and Turkish authorities were aware of that.” (Cumhuriet, May 13, 1986).

In an interview with the Turkish daily Cumhuriet, this representative of the Azerbaijani community in Turkey stated: “Two Iranian colonels planned Mr. Aziz Moradi’s assassination in the summer of 1985. They were able to get close to Mr. Aziz Moradi by pretending to be military intelligence agents of the Iranian regime that had fled the country.” (Cumhuriet, May 13, 1986).

At 5 o’clock in the afternoon of December 23, 1985, Mr. Aziz Moradi was shot and killed by three unidentified individuals in Istanbul’s Bakirkoy district’s Yeni neighborhood. (Milliyet, December 24, 1985). The perpetrators took his bag after killing Mr. Aziz Moradi.” (Electronic form, October 2, 2021). 

Quoting Turkish security officials, Cumhuriet newspaper reported that the reason the police had not been successful in apprehending the suspects in Mr. Aziz Moradi’s assassination, was that the perpetrators were professionals with considerable backing and support. The report did not talk about the source of the support. (Cumhuriet, May 13, 1986). According to the Cumhuriet report, “Iranian spies and agents of Iran’s security and intelligence organization (The Ministry of Information)” were responsible for Mr. Aziz Moradi’s assassination. (Cumhuriet, February 12, 1989).

Based on a Milliyet newspaper report published in November 1986, Qiam-e Iran newspaper wrote that Turkish Police had identified the three Iranian individuals, including an employee of Iran’s Ministry of Information, suspected of the assassination of three National Resistance Movement members, including Mr. Aziz Moradi, and located their residence. (Qiam-e Iran newspaper, December 11, 1986).

Iranian Officials’ Reaction

There is no information available regarding the Iranian Officials’ reaction.

The National Movement of the Iranian Resistance’s Reaction

On the anniversary of Mr. Aziz Moradi’s assassination, Mr. Shapur Bakhtiar, Head of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance, issued a statement in which he identified the Islamic Republic of Iran as the entity responsible for the killing. (Qiam-e Iran newspaper, December 11, 1986).

The Turkish Government’s Reaction

Turkish Police declared operatives affiliated with the Islamic republic of Iran to be the ones responsible for Mr. Aziz Moradi’s assassination. (Article, 2013).

According to Qiam-e Iran newspaper, quoting a Milliyet newspaper report published in November 1986, Turkish Police provided Turkey’s Border protection forces and International Police with the photographs and particulars of the three suspects who had fled to Iran after the assassinations. (Qiam-e Iran newspaper, December 11, 1986).

Following the assassination of Ugur Mumcu, the renowned Turkish journalist who had published an article about Turkey’s Islamic terrorist groups to the effect that said groups had played a role in the assassination of opponents of the Iranian regime with the latter’s financial, military, and intellectual support, including in Mr. Aziz Moradi;s killing, the Turkish Government arrested several members of these radical Islamic groups in a villa in Istanbul’s Bikuz District on January 17, 2000. At their trial, reference was made numerous times to the presence and role of the Iranian regime’s diplomatic and security agents in kidnapping and assassinating their opponents, based on the discovered documentation and evidence.  These individuals had made multiple trips to Iran in the 1980’s and the 1990’s for the purpose of receiving military training. The court’s decision alluded to dozens of terrorist operations. Although Colonel Aziz Moradi’s murder was not ascribed to this group of defendants, however, the court decision repeatedly pointed to the defendants’ relationship with Iran’s security forces as well as to Iran’s financial, intelligence, and operational aid to the defendants in assassinating Turkish intellectuals and Iranian opposition members residing in Turkey. The court decision also stated the names of the Iranian Embassy staff members who played a direct and indirect role in the assassinations. (Excerpts from the indictment issued by Turkey’s Major Crimes Tribunal, Branch 11, and the July 2005 Court Decision).

Family’s Reaction

There is no information available regarding the Mr. Aziz Moradi’s family’s reaction.

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* Other sources: The book “Neghab: Neghab’s 18 Tir Uprising. Nojeh” (2015); Mr. Khosro Beitollahi’s interview with Iran Global website (May 11, 2011); Ettela’at newspaper (July 20, 1980); Khorassan Newspaper archives (undated); the book “Iran: In Defense of Human Rights” (1982); AFP News Agency and the Herald Tribune (Reuters report) (May 18, 1nd 19, 1985); Ettela’at newspaper (April 17, 1985); Artesh Mahnameh (Army Monthly), Attachment Number 1 (March-April, 1986); National Movement of the Iranian Resistance Intellectual Principles and Political Platform (October 6, 2019); Sarbazan website (undated); and the article published by Brigham Young University in the United States (1992) entitled: Champion, Brian and Crowther, Lee, "Appendix 3: An Interlinear Comparison of Six Chronologies Documenting Allegedly Iran-Sponsored Extraterritorial Attempted Killings, 1979-1996" (2013). Faculty Publications. 1572.

** This Force was established in 1970 under the name the Special Airborne Forces 23rdBrigade (NOHED) by Major-General Pilot Manuchehr Khosrodad. The Brigade was stationed at Bagheshah Military Base (Horr Base). The Brigade had 5 operations battalions including the support battalion, the communications detachment, the base company, and the irregular warfare training school. After the Revolution, the Force, continuing to exist and not having been dissolved, was used in special missions such as the conflicts in Khuzestan, Sistan and Balichestan, and Kurdistan Provinces. When the plan for Nojeh Coup d’état was leaked and revealed, Hassan Rohani, then Islamic Consultative Assembly (Parliament) representative, asked that the Force be dismantled on July 14, 1980, but faced opposition from then-Defense Minister Mostafa Chamran. The Arvand Joint Operations, known as the AMMA Operations refers to the presence of Iran’s Imperial Air Force and Imperial Army’s presence on Arvand Rud River (the river separating Iran and Iraq) escorting the Iranian commercial ship Ebne Sina on May 12 1969, after the then-Iraqi Government laid claim on the entirety of Arvand Rud River and threatened to prevent the passage of Iranian ships therein.

*** Neqab defined its goals as follows:

1. To overthrow and wipe out the clerics and their associated hoodlums, destroy the ludicrous revolutionary guards and their committees; while at the same time,

a. Stand with respect to enlightened clerics of all faiths, and

b. Honor the brave servicemen in the armed forces, police and gendarmerie;

2- To establish an authentic nationalist government that

a. Upholds equality of all ideologies that genuinely emanate from and are for the people;

b. Adheres to the establishment of an economic order that promotes social justice and the equal distribution of wealth;

c. Is committed to the orderly transition to and the establishment of democracy paving the way for the emergence of an environment in which different ideologies can be put forward to the general public, the best of which shall prevail in a fair competition;

d. Takes charge of the country during a brief transition period and hands over political power to the majority party.

According to some members of the organization and informed sources, Neqab turned to Shapur Bakhtiar, the last prime minister of the Shah, to lead the country following the overthrow of the clerical regime. Bakhtiar, who had never resigned from office, had been dubbed the "true spiritual son"  of Mossadegh in the statement issued by Neqab; he had been invited to take part in the uprising, in the knowledge that the revolutionary rulers had started a "cleansing" process in the armed forces to get rid of unwanted servicemen, and thereby remove the risk of any possible willingness and/or capacity to engage in a subversive action in the future.

It is difficult to gauge the number of participants in the planned operation. Nonetheless, according to the testimony of some of the operational commanding officers, other than the civilian collaborators who were not in direct contact with the said commanding officers, armed forces across the whole country including key officers in the 77th Armored Division (of Khorassan), the 92nd Armored Division (of Khouzestan), the Airborne Brigade of Shiraz, the Armored Division in Ghazvin, the Armored Division in Khash, the Mehrabad Airbase, the NOHED (Airborne Special Forces) Brigade and a number of tribal armed warriors, who ensured the security of towns and borders along with the forces of law and order, backed the operation. Tehran was the primary target of the coup.

The operation's preparation had taken seven months. Air Force pilots had been tasked with taking off from the Shahrokhi Air Base (this location, at 60 km distance from Hamedan, had been selected because of its distance from Tehran and other big cities) at 6 a.m. on July 9 to bomb a few strategic locations in Tehran. Eight F-14 fighter jet planes remained in a state of readiness in a border area tasked with intervening to crush resistance should forces loyal to the regime fly towards Tehran. The primary targets of the bombing air raids were: the runways of the Mehrabad International Airport and the main Train Station in Tehran (Rahahan), to prevent movement of the reinforcement force loyal to the clerics towards Tehran, the centre of the operation; the runways of the Mehrabad International Airport; the building of Parliament used as the telecommunications headquarters by the revolutionary committees; the Niavaran Palace used as the training ground for a newly created armed body which later became the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the Manzarieh Park that was the abode and training ground for the Syrian and Palestinian para-militia based in Tehran; the Eshrat-abad Garrison and Khomeini's residence in the North of Tehran (Jamaran area). In parallel, another team was tasked to take control of the national radio and television building in Tehran to get the news out, to explain the reasons behind the move and invite people to join and support the organization. Emphasis was to be placed on explaining the goals and intentions of the putschists: that they did not intend to hold on to power; that after seizing control of key locations they were to handover the administration of the country to the Political Council of Neqab; and that a general amnesty was to be declared within 48 hours.

The operation was revealed only hours before the scheduled start time. On that day the officials of the regime announced that a network of servicemen and civilians who had planned to overthrow the regime via a military coup had been identified and their scheme had been quashed. On July 20, 1980 Khomeini issued a decree (a fatwa) in which he prescribed the "execution of all the participants in the plot". The order was widely broadcast and published in the media. Data collected by the ABC shows that in the following two months at least 96 individuals, servicemen and civilians, were executed across the country by firing squads. Most of them were active servicemen who had not yet been disposed of in the "cleansing" operation launched in the armed forces. The following decades saw more executions. Different narratives put forward different numbers for the victims. Colonel Mohammad Baqer Baniameri, one of the leading figures in the Military Council of the organization, identified and recorded 142 executed persons. As of today, the ABC has recorded at least 123 people (88 of whom were members of the armed forces) executed in relation to the Coup. Given the secret nature of the organization and the operation, said a member of the Organization, each member had contact with only one or two other members and did not know any other person in the network. Thus, a significant number of associates remained unidentified and managed to survive.

After the discovery of the July 9, 1980 Uprising plans, Islamic Republic authorities used the media and the detainees’ sentences to accuse Neghab members of affiliation with the “Non-Islamic governments of America and Israel” with the aim of establishing “an American [style] social democratic government”, and claimed the CIA to be among the planners of the “Nojeh Coup d’état”. On September 9, 1980, the organization issued a statement in which they assumed responsibility for the "ground-breaking uprising on July 9, 1980". The statement read: "Notwithstanding the preposterous allegations made by the regime's officials, the July 9th uprising was a widespread independent act with no foreign backing. It was the feat of patriotic men and women, ordinary people, most of them with working class background, who employed the limited resources available to them inside the country to obtain weaponry and other necessities. They were assisted exclusively by fellow compatriots equally athirst for freedom. The 81 pieces of weaponry hidden in one of the organization's safe houses in Tehran, together with the two thousand tri-color national flags that were discovered and put on display in the media, bear evidence of truth ". The statement continued: "Of the people who were charged with participating in the operation and executed, only 67 were associated with our organization; Khomeini seized the chance to eliminate nationalists, those who fight for freedom and those who oppose his ideology." The trial behind closed doors of those arrested, said the statement, revealed the fear by the regime "of the prospect of the public's awareness of the nature of the uprising and what had motivated the instigators of that brave patriotic act."

In the years that followed, a number of the members of the organization escaped Iran and joined forces with opposition groups abroad, including the National Resistance Movement led by Shapur Bakhtiar, and the Flag for Freedom of Iran (the FFO, "Derafsh-e Kaviani"). In the following two decades, many fell victim to the extrajudicial killings perpetrated by death squads dispatched by or linked to the regime in Tehran.

**** ”1. Overthrow of the newly instituted Islamic Republic of Iran; 2. Reinstating security through the establishment of a coalition of the nationalist opposition which will have freedom and independence as its aim, will create a safe, peaceful, and healthy environment in which political disagreements can be resolved through debate and the exchange of ideas, and will prevent the re-emergence of an environment of fear and apprehension. The mental space of anger and vindictiveness which kills the sense of responsibility and causes conflicts that destroy the country, must give way to a peaceful, kind, and respectful environment so that the enemies will not be able to use such a chaotic environment in order to force upon us their pre-designed plans. It is only in such a [peaceful] environment that the interim nationalist government can lay the groundwork for the election and installment of a political system in line with the people’s current demands by the people themselves. 3. The repair of an economy “that is on the verge of bankruptcy during the dark rule [of theocracy]” by giving the government the authority to control and manage manufacturing, banking, and services institutions, whether public or private. After the return to normalcy, the interim government shall turn over the reins for making economic policies and implementation of the guidelines thereof, to the government elected by the Parliament, which itself shall be elected by the people. 4. Establishment of a Constitutive Assembly, carrying out free elections, and turning over the country’s affairs to the government chosen by the people’s elected representatives.

***** In order to read the full text of “the background of extrajudicial killings in the Islamic Republic of Iran” containing the statements of various Islamic Republic officials and the historic background of the killings, please clicking on the same title to the left of the page.