By James Morrison Source: InsideEmbassyRow
WASHINGTON \u2013The exiled Iranian resistance Thursday accused Iran\u2019s U.N. ambassador of coordinating the 1993 assassination of a leading Iranian dissident in Rome and called on international authorities to file criminal charges against the diplomat.<\/p>\n
Soona Samsami, the Washington-based representative for the resistance, declared the case against Hamid Aboutalebi, who is also accused of holding American diplomats hostage in 1979, is \u201cwell established.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder no circumstances should a hostage-taker and a terror-master be admitted to the United States, let alone to the United Nations,\u201d Samsami told Inside Embassy Row.<\/p>\n
Italian police concluded that the March 16, 1993 e assassination of Mohammad-hossein Naghdi was a \u201cpolitical\u201d killing directed by \u201cIranian government circles.\u201d The police added that the murder was part of a broader \u201cframework\u201d by the brutal, theocratic regime in Tehran to target its critics.<\/p>\n
Naghdi had served as a diplomat for the Iranian regime but defected to the resistance in 1982 to \u201cprotest the executions, tortures and massacres\u201d by the regime, the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran said Thursday.<\/p>\n
In Washington, Samsami added, \u201cHamid Abutalebi\u2019s role in the 1993 assassination of the Iranian Resistance\u2019s representative in Italy, Mr. Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, is well established. As such, he should face the International Criminal Court instead of being received at the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbutalebi\u2019s nomination makes it palpably clear that the notion of Hassan Rouhani\u2019s being moderate is a farce,\u201d she said, referring to Western press reports that portrayed the Iranian president as a reformer.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s appointment of Aboutalebi to serve at the United Nations puts pressure on the Obama administration, which must decide whether to issue him a visa to serve at the New York-based world body.<\/p>\n
A State Department spokeswoman on Wednesday denounced Aboutalebi for his role in the 1979 assault on the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Islamic radicals held 52 Americans for 444 days.<\/p>\n
However, she also noted that the United States, as the host country for the United Nations, has a responsibility to issue visas to foreign diplomats assigned there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By James Morrison Source: InsideEmbassyRowWASHINGTON –The exiled Iranian resistance Thursday accused Iran’s U.N. ambassador of coordinating the 1993 assassination of a leading Iranian dissident in Rome and called on international […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-16264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-terrorism-a-fundamentalism","7":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\n