The "Mykonos trial"

TIME - ..... Berlin's Mykonos Restaurant .... On the evening of Sept. 17, 1992,  ...... at 11 p.m. two men burst in wielding an automatic pistol and an Uzi machine gun. They shouted, "You sons of whores!" in Farsi, then sprayed the men, tables and walls with bullets and sped away in a blue BMW, leaving a horrific scene of sprawled bodies, spilled food and oozing blood. Iranian Kurd leader Sadegh Sharafkandi, 54, and two other men lay dead, and a third man died shortly afterward in the hospital .... The massacre bore all the hallmarks of a made-in-Tehran hit.

Sadegh Sharafkandi
 Sharafkandi

 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuter):

.... Bonn has issued an arrest warrant for Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahiyan, whom they accuse of masterminding the murders of Kurdish opposition leader Sadegh Sharafkandi, two associates and a translator. Iran denies responsibility for killings.

BERLIN (CNN) -Date: 1997/04/11:
In a ruling expected to strain Germany's diplomatic relations with Iran, a German court Thursday convicted four men in the 1992 murders of dissident Iranian-Kurdish leaders in a Berlin restaurant and found that the killings were ordered by the "highest state levels" in Iran's capital.

CNN's Jackie Shymanski reports: The judges convicted two men of murder and two others of being accessories to murder in the September 17, 1992, deaths of Iranian-Kurdish leader Sadiq Sarafkindi and three of his colleagues. Presiding Judge Frithjof Kubsch said the men had no personal motive but were following orders. Without naming names, Kubsch said the gangland-style murders had been ordered by Iran's Committee for Special Operations, to which Iran's president and spiritual leader belonged. Prosecutors had contended that Iran's powerful spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani had personally ordered the killings. Germany said it was expelling four Iranian diplomatic staff. "The participation of Iranian state agencies, as found in the court verdict, represents a flagrant violation of international law," the German foreign ministry said in a statement. Iranian speaker calls verdict 'political'.

The judges found Kazem Darabi, an Iranian who worked as a grocer in Berlin, and a Lebanese man, Abbas Rhayel, guilty of murder and sentenced them to life in prison. Two other Lebanese, Youssef Amin and Mohamed Atris, were convicted of being accessories to murder. Amin was given 11 years and Atris five years and three months. The fifth defendant, Atallah Ayad, also Lebanese, was acquitted ....... Iran, Germany recall ambassadors.