Mr. By Ahmadi was in charge of all of Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization’s activities and programs inside Iran.

 

News and information regarding Mr. Ata'ollah By Ahmadi was published in the Washington Post (August 2, and September 9, 1989); Sarbazan weblog (undated); and Paygah-e Jahani-e Terrorism (undated). Additional information about this case was obtained from a video interview with Manuchehr Ganji, founder of the Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization (undated); the Washington Post (September 7, 1986); the United Nations office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (November 22, 2000); the book “Na Zistan, Na Marg” (“Neither Living Nor Dying”) 2004-05), and other sources. *

Mr. By Ahmadi was born on August 11, 1933, in [the port town of] Bandar Gaz in Mazandaran Province. He was a colonel in the Iran Imperial Armed Forces who had graduated in 1957-58 from the Officers’ School, and was transferred to Bozorg Arteshtaran (“Commander-in-Chief”) Headquarters’ ** Second Bureau upon completing preliminary training in the field of engineering in 1965-66. After completing the intelligence and counter-intelligence advanced program at the Command and Headquarters School, he became the head of the counter-espionage and counter-intelligence unit. He was then appointed to the position of the Head of the Imperial Army’s Counter Intelligence Department’s General Administration for Operations. (Sarbazan weblog, undated).

After the fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty, Mr. By Ahmadi lived in hiding in Iran for a time, and subsequently, secretly left the country and went to France. (The article “The Nojeh Coup d’état and Iran’s Policy”, November 2002). He took an active part in the Nojeh Coup d’état*** on 18 Tir 1359 (July 9, 1980), and after the Coup’s failure, he left Iran (Sarbazan weblog, undated) and took up residence in Paris, France. (Manuchehr Ganji interview, undated).

Mr. By Ahmadi was a member of the Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization (“The Flag for Freedom of Iran”) and was in charge of all of the Organization’s activities and programs, including the creation and activation of resistance cells against the [Islamic Republic] regime, inside Iran. (The book “Disobeying the Iranian Revolution: From the Shah’s Minister to the Head of the Resistance”, 2002-03, page 196)

The Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization carried out several secret operations inside Iran, including hacking and interrupting all of Iran’s television stations at 9 o’clock in the evening of September 7, 1986, and broadcasting Prince Reza Pahlavi’s 11-minute message **** to the people of Iran. Mr. By Ahmadi played a role in preparing this operation, and was in contact with opposition groups within the Iranian Army; he had secretly gone back inside Iran on two separate occasions prior to his assassination. (The Washington Post, August 2, 1989).

Two of Mr. By Ahmadi’s sisters were arrested and charged with participating in the Nojeh Coup d’état. One of them was executed in Tehran on August 9, 1981. (Sarbazan weblog, undated). 

The Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization

The Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization (“The Flag for Freedom of Iran”) was a constitutional monarchist organization opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran regime, founded in 1987 in Paris, France, by Manuchehr Ganji, Minister of Education under Prime Ministers Amir Abbas Hoveyda and Jafar Sharifemami [during Mohammad Reza Shah’s reign]. At the time of its establishment, the Organization also started a radio station in Cairo, Egypt, called “The Voice of Iran’s Derafsh-e Kaviani” that broadcast programs in Persian for four hours a day. The Organization actively opposed the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran through distribution of audio and video cassettes inside Iran, and broadcasting radio programs on Derafsh-e Kaviani Radio. In 1998-99, the Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization changed its name to “The Organization for Human Rights and Fundamental Rights for Iran”.

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. Ata'ollah By Ahmadi and his death

Mr. Ata'ollah By Ahmadi was killed on June 4, 1989 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. (The Washington Post, August 2, 1989; Article, 2013; Paygah-e Jahani-e Terrorism, undated; Manuchehr Ganju interview, undated).

According to the Washington Post report, at 4 o’clock in the morning of June 4, 1989, Mr. By Ahmadi travelled from Istanbul to Dubai on an Emirates Airlines flight, carrying a Jordanian passport, in order to hold a meeting with three Iranian military officers who had travelled to UAE from Iran, and checked into the Excelsior Hotel. At 8:30 in the morning of that same day, Mr. By Ahmadi’s body was discovered in his room by hotel employees: He had been shot once in the head. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest. (The Washington Post, August 2, 1989).

Regarding preparations made for Mr. By Ahmadi’s assassination, Mr Ganji stated: “After 18 members of the Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization were arrested inside Iran, a high-ranking official of Tehran’s Evin Prison contacted Mr. By Ahmadi and told him that he agreed with the Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization’s ideals and could help the Organization’s prisoners; he asked to meet with him and with the head of the Organization. For security reasons, Mr. By Ahmadi first met this person by himself in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 1989. 16 Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization members were released subsequent to this meeting. After the release of the prisoners, Mr. By Ahmadi accepted a proposal to meet with this person, along with the Organization’s founder, in Dubai; once again, however, Mr. By Ahmadi went to Dubai by himself for security reasons. Three and a half hours after his arrival at the hotel, he was shot and killed by two or three individuals.” (The book “There is still a judge in Berlin: The Mikonos Murders and Trial”, 2000, page 127; the Washington Post, August 2, 1989).

According to Mr. Ganji, Mr. By Ahmadi met this high-ranking Evin Prison official in Istanbul in the presence of his bodyguard, several members of the Derafsh-e Kaviani organization, and the Turkish Police. Said individual took a picture with Mr. By Ahmadi and his bodyguard, and took the picture [back to Iran]. (The book “Disobeying the Iranian Revolution: From the Shah’s Minister to the Head of the Resistance”, Manuchehr Ganji, 2002-03, page 196).

 In the course of its investigations, the Dubai Police found no sign of forced entry into Mr. By Ahmadi’s room, which indicated that either Mr. By Ahmadi had willingly let the assassin(s) in the room, or that they were already waiting for him there. Quoting two exiled Iranians who claimed they had knowledge of the details of the Dubai Police’s investigations into Mr. By Ahmadi’s murder, the Washington Post reported that his assassin was an Iranian national whom Dubai officials had denied an entry visa due to concerns about his identity, and that said individual had entered Dubai via Sharjah. Mr. By Ahmadi’s killer immediately fled to the city of Shiraz, Iran, at 11 o’clock in the morning of that same day (The book “There is still a judge in Berlin: The Mikonos Murders and Trial”, 2000, page 127) on a direct flight from Dubai. (the Washington Post, August 2, 1989).

Quoting a source with knowledge of the case, the Washington Post reported that the Dubai authorities began to suspect the then-Chief Consul of the Iranian Consulate in Dubai because of his contacts with Mr. By Ahmadi’s killer at the time of his arrival in Dubai, as well as at the time of his departure after the assassination, on a direct and immediate flight to Shiraz. (the Washington Post, August 2, 1989). There is no information regarding any actions taken by the United Arab Emirates government in connection with the then-Chief Consul of the Iranian Consulate in Dubai.

Mr. By Ahmadi’s assassin had submitted a copy of his passport to a hotel front desk employee at check-in. In the course of the Dubai Police’s investigations, Mr. By Ahmadi’s bodyguard was able to identify the assassin based on that passport photo, and stated that he was the same person who had previously met with Mr. By Ahmadi in Istanbul, Turkey. Mr. By Ahmadi’s bodyguard himself was also assassinated two years later in Turkey. (Iraj Mesdaghi’s website, September 14, 2021).

After the return of Mr. By Ahmadi’s assassin to Iran, the 16 Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization members who had been released were arrested again and a number of them were executed. (The book “There is still a judge in Berlin: The Mikonos Murders and Trial”, 2000, page 127).

The Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization transferred Mr. By Ahmadi’s body to Paris. (The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, November 22, 2000).

Iranian Officials’ Reaction

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

The United Arab Emirates Officials’ Reaction

By not approving the new Iranian Ambassador to the UAE’s credentials, Dubai municipal authorities and the United Arab Emirates officials protested Mr. By Ahmadi’s murder on Dubai soil. (The Washington Post, August 2, 1989).

Family’s Reaction

There is no information available regarding Mr. By Ahmadi’s family’s reaction to his assassination.

Impact on the Family

There is no information available regarding the impact of Mr. By Ahmadi’s assassination on his family.

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* The book “There is still a judge in Berlin: The Mikonos Murders and Trial” (2000); the article “The Nojeh Coup D’etat and Iran’s Policy”, Mark Gazirovsky (November 2002); an article published by Brigham Young University in the United States: 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; the book “Disobeying the Iranian Revolution: From the Shah’s Minister to the Head of the Resistance”, Manuchehr Ganji (2002-03, pages 195 and 196).

** The Setad-e Bozorg Arteshtaran (“Commander-in Chief of the Imperial Armed Forces Headquarters”) Second Bureau was an espionage, intelligence, and counter-intelligence service founded during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi by Iranian officers trained in France. The Bureau was first called “Second Bureau of the Armed Forces War Bureaus”, then changed its name to “Armed Forces Headquarters Second Bureau”. Initially, the Bureau’s principal function was to gather military intelligence from foreign countries. After the 1953 Coup, however, the Second Bureau took on the task of surveilling and prosecuting the government’s political opponents, as well as gathering intelligence domestically and ensuring national security inside Iran.

*** The architects of the July 9, 1980 uprising (the so-called "Nojeh Coup") were veterans, active servicemen, 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). They were concerned about the plight of the country in the throes of clerics, and believed in an independent Iran and its national sovereignty within the framework of a liberal democracy and the separation of the state from religion; they set out to overthrow 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. The threat of becoming homeless and stateless awaits thirty-six million souls and is real." 

Neqab defined its goals as follows: 1-  to overthrow and wipe out the clerics and their associated ruffians, destroy the ludicrous revolutionary guards and their committees; Meanwhile, they pledged to stand reverently on the side of a- enlightened clerics of all faiths, and b- 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 the people 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 t political power to the majority party.

According to some members of the organization and informed sources, Neqab turned to Shapour 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 Armoured Division (of Khorassan), the 92nd Armoured Division (of Khouzestan), the Airborne Brigade of Shiraz, the Armoured Division in Ghazvin, the Armoured 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 fromTehranand other big cities) at6 a.m.on July 9 to bomb a few strategic locations inTehran. 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 towardsTehran. 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 inTehranto 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. OnJuly 20, 1980Khomeini 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.

OnSeptember 9, 1980, the organization issued a statement in which they assumed responsibility for the "ground-breaking uprising onJuly 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-colour 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 escapedIranand joined forces with opposition groups abroad, including the National Resistance Movement led by Shapour 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 despatched by or linked to the regime inTehran.

**** At 9 o’clock in the evening of September 7, 1986, the Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization hacked and interrupted Iran’s state-run television, and broadcast Prince Reza Pahlavi’s pre-recorded 11-minute message on two Iranian TV networks via a special television signal emitted from inside Iran. In his message, the Prince “emphasized his will to fight the Khomeini regime and asked for the support of the Iranian people”. After the broadcast, a number of the Pahlavi Dynasty supporters demonstrated in the streets of Tehran’s southern districts. The Revolutionary Guards attacked the demonstrators and fired at them. According to a Washington Post report, quoting local eyewitnesses, there were possibly dozens of wounded, who were taken to hospitals in the south of Tehran. There is no information regarding the number of dead. After the broadcast, the Derafsh-e Kaviani Organization accepted responsibility for hacking Iranian state television and taking Prince Reza Pahlavi’s video message inside Iran to be broadcast. The Islamic Republic of Iran did not officially react to the hacking and the broadcast of the Prince’s message.

***** Read more about the background of extrajudicial killings in the Islamic Republic of Iran by clicking on the left hand highlight with the same title.