Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

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

Gholam Hossein Oveissi

About

Age: 58
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Islam (Shi'a)
Civil Status: Married

Case

Date of Killing: February 7, 1984
Location of Killing: 33 Rue de Passy, Paris, France
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting
Age at time of alleged offense: 58

About this Case

The information regarding the extrajudicial execution of Mr. Gholam Hossein Oveissi was obtained from Le Monde (Feb 8, 1984, Feb 09, 1984, Feb 10, 1984), and the New York Times (Feb 08, 1984); “No Safe Haven: Iran’s global assassination campaign”,  and the interview of Mr. Hamid Reza Oveissi with Voice of America on Feb. 6, 2013.

Gholam Hossein Oveissi was the brother of Field Marshal Gholam Ali Oveissi, one of the most influential officers in the armed forces in Iran before and after the 1979 revolution. 

Born in 1926, Mr. Gholam Hossein Oveissi came from a large family in the village of Fordow, in the vicinity of Qom. His father, Mr. Gholam Reza Oveissi, was a farmer. 

Mr Gholam Hossein was a mid-ranking civil servant. His last position before the revolution in 1979 was the mayorship of a district in Tehran. He had retired before the revolution and had no political activity at any time before or after the revolution. After retirement, he pursued his interest in agrarian life.(Interview of Hamid Reza Oveissi)  

Mr. Oveissi continued to live in Iran after the revolution. There had not been any threat to his life life in Iran.(Interview of Hamid Reza Oveissi) He  had arrived from Tehran, accompanied by his mother, on Feb 5th 1984 to visit his brother and his family in Paris. 

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 local authorities have not issued arrest warrants. But documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm the theory of state committed crimes. In some instances, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion or arrest of Iranian diplomats. In a few cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial. 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 that 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. 

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.

Mr. Gholam Hossein Oveissi’s Death 

According to the available information, in the afternoon of February 7, 1984, at around 14h00, Mr. Gholam Ali Oveissi was assassinated as he walked alongside his brother, General Gholam Ali Oveissi, in a busy prosperous street in Paris (Rue de Passy, 75016 Paris). He was shot by a single bullet at close range with a 9-millimeter pistol and died instantly.(Le Monde, Feb 9 & Feb 10 , 1984)

Later on the same day, the Islamic Jihad (1) group claimed responsibility for the assassination in a phone call to the London office of the Associated Press. On the same day in Washington, another group, called the Iranian revolutionary organization for liberation and reform, which was an unknown group until then, also claimed responsibility for the killing.(Le Monde, Feb 9, 1984)

At no time the identity of the perpetrators of the assassination was made public in France. Nonetheless, in an action taken by the grandson of General Oveissi in 2003 in a court of law in the USA for the extrajudicial killing of his grandfather, the US court condemned the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Ministry of Information and Security for the assassination of General Gholam Ali Oveissi. (Memorandum Opinion 03-cv-01197 at at "Conclusion") 

Following a judicial inquiry held in Berlin (Germany) seeking to establish the role and responsibility of the Islamic Republic of Iran in planning and carrying out extrajudicial killings of individuals out of the territory of Iran, the Berlin tribunal rendered a verdict on April 10, 1977 and determined a list of 264 victims of state sponsored terrorism by the Islamic Republic of Iran. General Gholam Ali Oveissi was number 7 on the list. 

Mr. Gholam Hossein Oveissi was laid to rest next to his brother, General Gholam Ali Oveissi, in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.(Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Division 49, Chemin Casimir Delavigne, Line 1)

Officials’ Reaction 

It has been reported that on February 8, 1984 Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, then speaker of the parliament, announced the news to the deputies and congratulated them thereon.(Interview of Hamid Reza Oveissi

In his memoirs, for the entry for Monday Feb 6, 2003 Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani wrote: “We received the news that Gholam Ali Oveissi,  the butcher, the executioner and the military governor of Tehran on the Black Friday of 1978 and in June 5, 1963 and his brother have been executed in Paris, and that  the Islamic Jihad (Lebanon) has attributed the honor of this revolutionary execution to itself. (Ettela'at Feb 12, 2003 _ Memoirs of Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani)”  

On Feb 8th, the Washington Post reported that Iran had described the killings as a "revolutionary execution." 

Familys’ Reaction

Hamid Reza Oveissi, son of Mr. Gholam Hossein Oveissi, stated in his interview with Voice of America (dated 2013) that the family decided to bring no action to pursue the perpetrators of the crime. He was unwilling to elaborate on the reasons for the decision; he only added that  a number of the family members lived and still live in Iran. He was convinced that the assassination of his uncle and father took place with the knowledge of “other countries”, without which knowledge it could not have been possible. He was convinced that his uncle was perceived as a threat to the regime. He said that he knew the identity of the perpetrator of the crime, whom Mr. Hamid Reza Oveissi described as a young man of 22-23 years of age, a well-known athlete of martial arts at the time of the crime. (Interview of Hamid Reza Oveissi)

Impact on Family

On Feb. 6 2013, on the 15th anniversary of the assassination of General Oveissi and his brother, Mr. Hamid Reza Oveissi, son of Mr. Gholam Hossein Oveissi, was interviewed by Voice of America. On the impact of the event on the family he stated: “When an individual is assassinated, a whole family is gone. There is no evening we don't think of our father, but we have learned to live with our grief. (Interview of Hamid Reza Oveissi)” 

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1-   The Islamic Jihad is a pro-Iranian umbrella group bringing together extremist Shi’a Muslims in Lebanon

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