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Who Was Behind the 1993 Assassination of an NCRI Member?

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NCRI – March 15th, 1993 marks the day when Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), was assassinated in Italy by Iranian intelligence agents.

Naghdi was Iran’s former charge d’affaires in the Iranian embassy in Rome. However, he joined the Iranian Resistance in 1982 and became a member of the NCRI representative delegation in Italy. From 1983 onward he became the NCRI representative in Italy.

On the day of his murder two individuals on a motorcycle near Rome’s Alba Square approached Naghdi’s vehicle at 9:30 am and opened fire. Naghdi lost his life before he reached the hospital.

The weapon used for this assassination, a silencer-equipped Scorpion 7.65, was found that same afternoon in a trash can located on Monte Roceta Avenue. The serial number was scratched.

Following the assassination when the police showed Miss Moruni, Naghdi’s widow, an album of 140 images she identified an individual who had been followed Mr. Naghdi and her for three days. The image belonged to Hamid Parande, a known Iranian agent.

Naghdi’s “Crime”

Joining the Iranian Resistance was reason enough for Tehran to want him dead. Iranian regime founder Ruhollah Khomeini himself had ordered his assassination back in 1983, a fact confirmed by Italian authorities.

The IRGC intelligence and the Iranian Prime Ministry’s intelligence office were placed in charge of this assassination. However, as the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) was formed, its Foreign Affairs Department, chaired by Ali Asghar Hejazi, was missioned to carry out this crime.

10 years of planning and the assassination

A number of Iran’s intelligence agents had once tried to assassinate Naghdi in 1983. The attempt failed and in 1988 Khomeini once again decided to assassinate the Iranian Resistance activists abroad, including Naghdi.

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) obtained information in this regard, beefed up Naghid’s security team and informed Italian authorities.

Following Khomeini’s death, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council identified a list of dissidents necessary to eliminate, including Dr. Kazem Rajavi, Naghdi, Mohammad Mohadessin, Jalal Ganjei, Manouchehr Hezarkhani, Abbas Davari, Parviz Khazaie and Abolghasem Rezaie. Naghdi’s assassination was scheduled after Dr. Kazem Rajavi.

As the Iran-Iraq War came to an end, during the tenure of former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani considered these assassination as a replacement for the war. This war was aimed to silence all dissents, taking advantage of a period when the West was launching a policy of appeasement with Iran.

From 1982 to 2002, nearly 450 assassinations have been carried out against Iranian dissidents. However, the West’s appeasement policy practically cloaked these assassinations.

The assassins who killed Dr. Kazem Rajavi were delivered back to Iran as a result of the appeasement policy.

Assassination team:

Following a number of failed attempts, two Iranian regime terrorists carrying fake U.S. dollars and a series of documents were arrested and expelled from Italy. One of these individuals was Akbar Khoshkush, an operations advisor to Sarmadi, the security deputy of Iran’s MOIS. The second individual was Mansour Ahani, a member of MOIS assassination teams. Tehran carried out these assassinations with support provided by its embassy in Rome and under the cover of diplomatic immunity.

Hamid Parande was involved in these assassinations. For three years he was in charge of the coding in Iran’s embassy in Bonn, Germany. Parande was considered a suspicious individual both by Germany and Italy, and yet he had transferred to Rome days before Naghdi’s assassination. Parande entered Rome on 7 January 1993 using a diplomat passport numbered 010236. He gave Italian authorities the address of the Iranian embassy as his home address.

On 8 March 1993 three individuals by the names of Hossein Neisawi, Ahmad Kalami and Hejabadi entered Rome and directly went to see Parande. Two of these individuals left Rome on 16 March 1993, a day after the assassination.

Neisawi was 35 to 40-years-old and born in the city of Isfahan. He used to torture prisoners in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison and a close confidant of former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezaie.