Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
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One Person’s Story

Ahmad Hamed Monfared

About

Age: 55
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Presumed Muslim
Civil Status: Unknown

Case

Date of Killing: October 24, 1986
Location of Killing: Ataköy, Istanbul, Turkey
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting
Charges: Unknown charge
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Human rights violations in this case

Extrajudicial killings

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, with the murder of Parviz Sayyah Sina, an Anglican Bishop, and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 500 extrajudicial killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.(1)

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran, where one of the first assassinations, that of a Navy Officer, Shahriar Shafiq, took place in Paris in December 1979. These assassinations have taken place 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 too many cases, states have failed to guarantee the victims’ rights to the truth, justice, and remedy; states have revealed little about the assassinations and have not issued arrest warrants. Where there have been arrests and prosecutions, available information reveals a state policy of eliminating perceived enemies. 

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 (The Netherlands, 2018) or arrest (Brussels, 2020; Turkey, 2021) of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial (Paris 1980 and 1991) and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant (the Mikonos Trial in Germany) has been issued for Iran’s then-Minister of Information, Ali Fallahian and the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications, Hossein Sheikh Attar.

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. (2). In 1997, the Berlin Criminal Court, in charge of hearing the case of the shooting of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant, officially announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s highest-ranking officials had issued the order to carry out the killings. According to the indictment, the decision to commit the murders was made in a committee called the “Special Operations Committee” composed of the President, the Minister of Information and Security (VAVAK), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representatives of the various security organs and other organizations, and finally, the Leader of the Revolution. 

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 (“one whose blood may be spilled, whose life can be taken, without the perpetrator incurring any punishment”) and their sentence is death regardless of where they are [and where you find them].” 

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” (Speech broadcast on the state-run Iranian Radio and Television on August 31, 1992, quoted from Asr Iran, August 17, 2006).

Extrajudicial killings have rarely been pursued legally in Iran. The few murders that were followed up on in 1998 , which came to be known as “the Serial (Chain) Murders(3),” have brought to light the involvement and responsibility of the country’s Information officials. Several Ministry of Information agents who were defendants in the Serial Murders case, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy of extrajudicial killings and emphasized that there was planning on an annual basis to carry out these executions, for which a religious decree was issued. There was a budget allocated and there were objectives set, and those who participated in the murders were commended. In a lecture given at [the city of] Hamedan’s Bu Ali University in 1996, Sa’eed Emami, Ministry of Information Deputy Minister for Security Affairs and one of the principal defendants in the Serial Murders case – who was later said by Iranian officials to have committed suicide while in detention – had stressed that the activities of Iran’s security forces were not confined to the country’s borders: “ … We have set the security perimeter within the confines of our borders. [However,] if we see threats infiltrating inside the country from abroad, we will enlarge the perimeter.”

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1) Among the first known murders that occurred a week after the February 1979 Revolution was that of Mr. Parviz (Arastu) Sayyah Sina, the bishop of a church in the city of Shiraz. The assassination of Mr. Shahriar Shafiq, an Imperial Navy officer, in December 1979 in Paris is among the first murders committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the country. ​​These killings continued in the following years inside and outside the country and in various forms.
2) Investigations into the murder of well-known personalities in France, Germany and Switzerland have yielded evidence and documentation showing that the officials and employees of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran acted as accomplices and principals [in the killings]. In France, the Islamic Republic’s Deputy Minister of Post and Telegraph was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of former Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar and his assistant, Sorush Katibeh. In Germany (Berlin), the Islamic Republic’s security agents and agents of the Lebanese Hezbollah were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of four Kurdish opposition leaders. In connection with the latter case, German Judicial authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, the then-Minister of Information. 
3) A few days before Mr. Mokhtari’s murder, Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, leaders of the People of Iran Party, had been killed in a most heinous manner in their own home. After Mr. Mokhtari’s body was found, the body of Mohammad Ja’far Puyandeh, another well-known literary figure, was discovered in a village near the city of Karaj. These four individuals’ cases was named the “Serial Murders”.
Human rights violations

Based on the available information, the following human rights may have been violated in this case:

  • The right to liberty and security of the person. The right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 9.1.

  • The right not to be punished for any crime on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time it was committed. 

UDHR, Article 11.2; ICCPR, Article 15, Article 6.2. 

  • The right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation. 

UDHR, Article 12, ICCPR, Article 17.1. 

  • The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to change and manifest one’s religion or belief.

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 18.1, ICCPR, Article 18.2; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 1 and Article 6.

In its general comment 22 (48) of 20 July 1993, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee observed that the freedom to "have or to adopt" a religion or belief necessarily entailed the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.

  • The right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

UDHR, Article 19; ICCPR, Article 19.1 and ICCPR, Article 19.2.

  • The right to freedom of peaceful assembly. 

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 21.

  • The right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of one’s interests.

UDHR, Article 20; ICCPR, Article 22.1.

  • The right, as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, to enjoy one’s own culture or to profess and practice one’s own religion. 

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 27.

  • The right to equality before the law and the right to equal protection of the law. 

UDHR, Article 7; ICCPR, Article 26.

The right to due process

  • The right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a competent and impartial tribunal in accordance with law.

ICCPR, Article 14.1 and Article 14.2.

Capital punishment

  • The inherent right to life, of which no one shall be arbitrarily deprived.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6.1; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, Article 1.1, Article 1.2.

  • The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

About this Case

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He was a bodyguard of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and had completed various military and legal courses in France, Iran and Germany.

Information regarding the extrajudicial execution of Mr. Ahmad Hamed Monfared, alias Hamid Farzaneh, has been obtained from the newspapers Jomhuri Eslami (September 18, 1991), Cumhuriyet Turkiye (October 25, 1986), Milliyet Turkiye (May 8, 2000), Qiyam-e Iran, media organ of the National Resistance Movement (October 30 and December 11, 1986), the indictment issued against Tohid Salam and IRGC Qods Force groups in Turkey (June/July/August 2000), the verdict issued by the 11th branch of the Ankara Criminal Court (July 28, 2005), United Press International (October 26, 1986), and an article published by Brigham Young University in the United States (2013)*. 

Colonel Ahmad Hamed Monfared was born in Tabriz on December 18, 1936 (Qiyam-e Iran, December 11, 1986) and was an officer in the Iranian Imperial Guard (Cumhuriyet Turkiye, October 25, 1986). Mr. Hamed Monfared entered Officers School in 1953 and graduated with the rank of second lieutenant in 1957. After completing various military and legal courses in France, Iran and Germany, Mr. Hamed Monfared received the rank of colonel in September/October 1975. He served in the Zabol and Mirjaveh border patrol, the Sistan-va Baluchestan headquarters fighting against drug traffickers, the central gendarmerie, the Qazvin gendarmerie regiment headquarters, and as commander of the Semnan gendarmerie. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he lived in hiding in Iran, and in February/March 1982, he fled to Turkey illegally via the land route and became a member of the National Resistance Movement (Qiyam-e Iran newspaper, October 30, 1986). He lived in Istanbul under the pseudonym Hamid Farzaneh (United Press International, October 26, 1986).

Mr. Hamed Monfared "actively" worked to overthrow the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Qiyam-e Iran, October 30, 1986). 

United Press International, quoting an Iranian source, reported without mentioning details that after leaving Iran, Mr. Hamed Monfared was in contact with a number of officers of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army who were secretly working to overthrow the government (October 26, 1986).

The National Movement of the Iranian Resistance

The National Movement of the Iranian Resistance (also called the National Resistance Movement) is an organization opposed to the Islamic republic, established on August 5, 1980, in Paris, France, by Shapur Bakhtiar, leader of the Iran Party and the last prime minister of the Monarchy. It was inspired by the National Resistance Movement that was established after the fall of Mohammad Mossadegh’s government in 1953. Bakhtiar invited all nationalist groups and individuals to unite their forces around one political platform under the umbrella of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance. In its “National Movement of the Iranian Resistance Intellectual Principles and Political Platform”, published on January 15, 1981, the National Resistance Movement announced its aim to be the establishment of democracy and a system based and predicated upon the free will of the people, so that citizens could be provided with the opportunity for a free, fruitful, and valuable life. The founder of the Movement insisted upon a pluralistic political structure, and considered intellectual and practical agreement with nationalism, democracy, and social justice as the necessary conditions for membership in the Movement. After its establishment, the Movement proposed a short-term and temporary plan consisting of four clauses: 1. The overthrow of the newly-established Islamic Republic of Iran; 2. Establishment of security through the creation of a coalition government “composed of the nationalist opposition that shall have as its priority the realization of freedom and independence”; 3. The repair of an economy “that is on the verge of bankruptcy during the dark rule [of theocracy]”; and 4. Establishment of a Constitutive Assembly, carrying out free elections, and turning over the country’s affairs to the government chosen by the people’s elected representatives**.

In the early years of its activity, a wide array of Iranians both inside and outside Iran either joined or supported the National Resistance Movement. Among its principal activities were organizing the political and military arms of the Movement in various countries and in Iran; establishing contact with those opposed to the regime inside Iran and striving to organize them and to gather political and military intelligence; organizing assemblies and protests; disseminating Iran-related news, especially information regarding human rights violations and arbitrary executions inside and outside the country through publication of books and magazines (Nehzat weekly magazine and Qiam-e Iran weekly); establishment of radio broadcasts in various countries including Iraq and Egypt; conducting interviews with foreign and Persian language media; corresponding with human rights institutions including the United Nations (for the purpose of conducting a referendum on the Islamic Republic under the auspices of the United Nations and/or reporting on the mass murder of political prisoners in the summer of 1988); and promoting human rights and democracy. As time went by, civil struggles became more important as part of the Resistance Movement’s activities. The first such civil movement that took shape at the Resistance Movement’s initiative were anti-war protests. On May 17, 1985, The Movement dispatched a call to companies and offices in Iran that had a fax machine, and called on the people through radio broadcasts and telephone calls to take part in peaceful demonstrations against the regime and protest the continuation of the war with Iraq. It was said that hundreds of thousands of people in various towns answered the call and participated in the demonstrations.

In the first decade of its establishment, a large number of the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance members were threatened and assassinated, including its founders Shapur Bakhtiar and Abdorrahman Boroumand, who were killed in Paris in 1991, and several officers of the Resistance Movement’s military arm, who were victims of extrajudicial killings in the first two decades after the Revolution.

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.

Threat and Death of Mr. Hamed Monfared

Mr. Ahmad Hamed Monfared was assassinated at 9 AM on Friday, October 24, 1986, in Istanbul, Turkey. (Jomhuri Eslami, September 18, 1991; Qiyam-e Iran, October 30, 1986; Milliyet Turkiye, May 8, 2000; Cumhuriyet, October 25, 1986).

Mr. Hamed Monfared was killed by two people who shot him with silencer-equipped weapons while he was standing in line for a bus with his niece in front of a primary school in the Atakoy district of Istanbul. (United Press International, October 26, 1986; an article published by Brigham Young University, USA, 2013; Milliyet Turkiye, May 8, 2000; Cumhuriyet, October 25, 1986).

He was with his niece waiting for a bus when he was shot twice and killed. 

After assassinating Mr. Hamed Monfared, the killers took his bag with them (Cumhuriyet, October 25, 1986).

The Qiyam-e Iran newspaper reported, based on a report published by Milliyet Newspaper in October/November 1986, that after the murder of Mr. Hamed Monfared, the Turkish police revealed the identity and place of residence of three Iranians, including a member of the Iranian Ministry of Information, who were involved in the assassination of three members of the National Resistance Movement, including Mr. Hamed Monfared. The police provided photos and details of these three people, who fled to Iran after carrying out the assassinations, to the Turkish border guards and the international police (Qiyam-e Iran, December 11, 1986).

Members of Turkish Islamist groups supported by the Iranian government, through collaboration with the Iranian government’s security forces, played a role in the murder of Mr. Hamed Monfared. According to the confessions of the accused members of Turkish Islamist groups arrested in connection with the assassination of several Turkish and Iranian citizens in 2000, they played a role in this assassination. These groups had received guerilla training in Iran and had financial and educational support from the Iranian government (Milliyet Turkiye, May 8, 2000).

Iran Officials’ Reaction

There is no information available regarding Iranian officials’ reaction. 

Turkish Government’s Reaction

The Turkish government declared operatives affiliated with the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran responsible for the assassination of Mr. Hamed Monfared. (Article published by Brigham Young University, USA, 2013) 

In the summer of 2000, the Chief Public Prosecutor of Turkey charged 24 defendants, who were members of Turkish Islamist groups, with participating in 22 terrorist operations against Turkish and Iranian citizens on Turkish soil. These people were arrested and tried after several operations that same year and in July/August 2004, the initial court verdict was issued against them. These people admitted in court that they had been in direct contact with Iran's security and intelligence forces since approximately 1981, and that they had traveled to Iran many times for military and political training and had received financial, educational, and military support. They also admitted that for many years they had carried out terrorist operations against opponents of the Iranian government in Turkey at the behest of the Iranian government. (Indictment issued against Tohid Salam and IRGC Qods Force groups in Turkey, June/July/August 2000; Verdict issued by the 11th branch of the Ankara Criminal Court, July 28, 2005) Despite extensive research, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center did not find the final verdict for these defendants, or information regarding their fate.

National Movement of the Iranian Resistance’s Reaction

In an interview with United Press International, a spokesperson for the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance declared the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran responsible for the murder of Mr. Hamed Monfared. (October 26, 1986)

Familys’ Reaction

There is no information available regarding the reaction of Mr. Hamed Monfared’s family 

Impacts on Family

There is no information available regarding the impact on Mr. Hamed Monfared’s family. 

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* 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.
**”1. Overthrow of the newly instituted Islamic Republic of Iran; 2. Reinstating security through the establishment of a coalition of the nationalist opposition which will have freedom and independence as its aim, will create a safe, peaceful, and healthy environment in which political disagreements can be resolved through debate and the exchange of ideas, and will prevent the re-emergence of an environment of fear and apprehension. The mental space of anger and vindictiveness which kills the sense of responsibility and causes conflicts that destroy the country, must give way to a peaceful, kind, and respectful environment so that the enemies will not be able to use such a chaotic environment in order to force upon us their pre-designed plans. It is only in such a [peaceful] environment that the interim nationalist government can lay the groundwork for the election and installment of a political system in line with the people’s current demands by the people themselves. 3. The repair of an economy “that is on the verge of bankruptcy during the dark rule [of theocracy]” by giving the government the authority to control and manage manufacturing, banking, and services institutions, whether public or private. After the return to normalcy, the interim government shall turn over the reins for making economic policies and implementation of the guidelines thereof, to the government elected by the Parliament, which itself shall be elected by the people. 4. Establishment of a Constitutive Assembly, carrying out free elections, and turning over the country’s affairs to the government chosen by the people’s elected representatives”.

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