"My father was killed by being inflicted with 11 knife blows and my mother with 24. My mother was killed on the second floor and my father on the chair in his study. Their bodies however were mutilated."

Parastoo Forouhar, daughter of Dariush Forouhar

On Sunday November 21 1998 following a lack of response to many callers who rang Dariush Forouhar's house-bell, Habib Khatebi, the only person who visited Forouhar two or three times a day to carry out his chores, entered his residence by climbing over the wall. The mutilated bodies of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, were then discovered.

Parastoo Forouhar, daughter of Dariush Forouhar, says that as late as eight o'clock the night before the murders i.e. on the 20th, friends of Forouhar were still at his home.

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Parastou Foruhar, daughter of secular opposition leader Daryoush Forouhar, stands beside her father's picture 21 November 1999, on the first anniversary of his murder in Tehran.

To date no official authority or those in 'responsible positions' have reported as to how Dariush Forouhar and his wife were murdered. The descriptions and all reports on this case point towards a tragic and calamitous killing. Parastoo Forouhar in her interview with the now banned Aftab-e-Emrouz Daily on November 20th 1999 stated: 

"My father was killed by being inflicted with 11 knife blows and my mother with 24. My mother was killed on the second floor and my father on the chair in his study. Their bodies however were mutilated. My mother's chest at some point as a result of frequent knife blows was completely smashed."

Dariush Forouhar was born in Isfahan and he was seventy years old when he was murdered. He had studied law and he was 21 years old when he was imprisoned. He was opposed to the Pahlavi regime which was overthrown during 1979.

Forouhar was appointed as Minister of Labor during the post-revolution temporary cabinet of the now deceased Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, the secretary general of the Iran National Liberation Movement Party. When Bazargan resigned from his Prime-Ministerial post, Forouhar also left politics and became a sideline critic.

Forouhar, at the time of his death, was secretary general of the Iran National Liberation Movement Party which was a nationalist party. He was a nationalist but he was not well known among the nation's young generation.

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A recent demonstration asking for justice for Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh, were stabbed to death in their Tehran apartment in November 1998.

As reported by Serajedin-e-Mirdamadi, the director general of the Political Deputy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an article published in the since banned Islamic Daily dated November 24 1998: 

"It should be mentioned that knowledgeable politicians never considered Dariush Forouhar as an outstanding personality nor an instrumental person or as a guide to the opposition forces. Their judgment was based on the fact that the Pan Iranist Party and Iran National Liberation Movement Party during recent years had no substantial members or supporters, even their names had been forgotten. The activities of these parties during this period were limited to participation in some of the meetings held for commemoration on the anniversaries of the deceased Taleghani and Bazargan."

The day after the discovery of the bodies of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, the then head of the Justice Department, while expressing his regret for this incident, asked responsible authorities to effectively investigate the case. On Monday November 29 1998, President Mohammad Khatami in a letter addressed to the Minister of State described these crimes as most despicable and asked the Minister to identify the assassins at the earliest. The President also ordered that a special committee be appointed under the chairmanship of the Ministry of State to follow up the case of the serial murders and identify the perpetrators.

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President Khatami initiated the investigation into the murders.

The President, following the submitting of his proposed 1378 (1999) national budget to the fifth Parliament in an interview with a Parliament reporter said: "I am deeply moved by the insecurity incidents which have recently taken place in the country, but you can be certain that I am determined with all my might to ensure that this society will have peace, order and live within the jurisdiction of the laws."

Mohammad Mokhtari left his residence at five o'clock in the afternoon of December 2 1998 and his body was identified at the coroner's office on December 8 1998.

Forouhar's murder had not yet been forgotten when Mohammad Mokhtari left his residence at five o'clock in the afternoon of December 2 1998 and his body was identified at the coroners office on December 8 1998. No news was reported on his death. His family has stated that one month prior to his murder a number of unidentified individuals had taken Mokhtari to an undetermined location and had released him after some 24 hours. His body was found around one of the mini-cities in the south of Tehran. One day before the discovery of his body, his wife in a letter had requested the President to assist in  locating him.

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Arash, son of slain writer Mohamad Mokhtari, stands next to a portrait of his father, during a gathering in Tehran's Fakr-Abad mosque, 06 December 1999, on the first anniversary of his father's murder.

When the news of his disappearance and the discovery of his body was reported via the mass-media, his name was unfamiliar to the public. He was, however, well known among people in the world of arts and literature who had read his works. He was an active writer and had written a large number of books on Iran and his country's culture.

Mrs Sima Pouyandeh on December 11 1998 in her letter addressed to the President wrote that her husband Mohammad Pooyandeh had left his office at four o'clock in the afternoon of December 8 1998 and had not yet returned.

Pooyandeh was one of the active translators of the country although the public did not really know of him. Of course the public insufficient familiarity with the names of Pooyandeh and Mokhtari was based not in the fact that they were not distinguished personalities, but because of prevailing weak cultural activities of the country during recent years.

Pooyandeh's body also was discovered around Shahriar on December 12 1998. On the same day 50 writers asked the President to identify the persons behind these crimes. Following the letter on December 4 1998, Saeed Hajjarian, the political adviser to the President and Ahmad Masjid Jameie, Deputy Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Organized a meeting with a number of the nation's writers and artists and declared as shameful and condemned the killings of the writers, and they discussed and exchanged views on the subject.

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Sima Pouyandeh, the widow of Mohammad Pouyandeh, next to a portrait of her husband during a memorial service.

During this period, many of the conservative daily newspapers reported involvement of Mojahedin-e-Khalqh in these murders, i.e. the Iraqi based armed MKO. They believed that foreign sources by staging these killings intended to create an environment of insecurity and instability in the country. At the same time many government officials like Mostafa Tajzadeh, the political deputy of the Ministry of State emphatically rejected this view.

On December 20 1998, the now banned Khordad Daily's director Abdullah Noori, the ex-minister of state, announced that the murders could be attributed to the group known as "Gorouhe-Fadaean  Islam-e-Nabe-e-Mostafa Navab."

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Abdollah Noori, made many remarks on the dissident murders case. His paper was shut down and he was tried by the Clergy Court and given a jail sentence.

Finally in January 4 1999 the public relations office of the Ministry of Information in a short press release unexpectedly announced:

"The despicable and abhorring recent murders in Tehran are a sign of chronic conspiracy and a threat to the national security. The Information Ministry based on their legal obligations and following clear directives issued by the Supreme Leader and the President, made the discovery and uprooting of this sinister and threatening event the priority action for the Ministry. With the cooperation of the specially appointed Investigatory committee of the President, the Ministry has succeeded to identify the group responsible for the killings, has arrested them and processed their cases through the judicial system. Unfortunately a small number of irresponsible, misguided, headstrong and obstinate staff within the Ministry of Information who are no doubt under the influence of undercover rogue agents and act towards the objectives of foreign and estranged sources committed these criminal activities".

This announcement from the Ministry of Information was the first of its kind, which was being published by the ministry following the years of the revolution.

It was later reported that Mokhtari and Pooyandeh were among those who had requested permission for the establishment of an Association of Writers from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance during Ayatollah Rafsanjani's government.

Many other applicants for such a permit were subjected to negative publicity attacks and pressure from hardliners and radical groups. Individuals such as Hooshang Golshiri, Simine Daneshvar, Mehrangiz Kar, Parviz Kordvani, Yahya Dowlatabadi were among this group but the official authorities never confirmed nor denied this.

Also individuals in political circles and intellectuals, with due attention to the method used to murder Mokhtari and Pooyandeh, both with the use of a rope, claimed that such murders were taking place for many years. They claimed that the number of these murders had reached tens and even could be more than 100.

The reformists named various victims such as Ahmad Miralaee, Abbas Zalzadeh, Ghafar Husseini, Manoochehr Saneie and his wife Firoozeh Kalantari, Akbar Tafazoli. All these individuals were murdered but no document is available to prove that they were killed by the same people. For example Mohammad Reza Khatami, the President's brother who is the director general of the Participation Front of Islamic Iran, before being elected as an MP, during his speech in Bandar Abbas, reported the numbers of these killings as 80.

Among those murdered the case of Majid Sharif should be noted. His body was found on November 18 1998 on the side of one of Tehran's roads called Larestan. His mother identified him on November 24 1998 in the coroner's office. The coroner had reported heart stoppage as the reason of death, but his mother states that she had never accepted this as the cause. She says that she wrote a letter to the President in which she rejected heart stoppage as the reason for her son's death and requested for the investigation of his case.

Of those arrested for the dissident murders were Saeed Emami or Islami, Mehrdad Alikhani, Mostafa Kazemi and Khosro Basati. Saeed Emami was the deputy security official of the Ministry of Information and the remaining were his subordinate staff and his colleagues.

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Saeed Emami widely believed to be one of the main culprits in the dissident murders will not be at the trial as authorities have reported him as having committed suicide in jail.

These names were announced sixth months after their arrests. It is reported that Saeed Imami from January 1999 when he was arrested up to June 3 1999 had tried five times to commit suicide until he finally committed suicide by clandestinely swallowing a common poison. There are conflicting reports on the manner of his suicide. His body or its photograph have never been publicly seen and even in the 'Behesht Zahra' graveyard, where he is said to have been buried, no grave has been registered in his name.

It should be noted that following the announcement that members of the Ministry of Information were instrumental in the serial murder case, Ghorban Ali Dorri Najaf Abadi, the Minister of Information, under political pressure and public opinion and for the reason of inefficiency and ineffective management of the ministry under his control, was forced to leave his post on February 17 1999. He was replaced by Hojjatolislam Ali Younessi, the current minister of the Information Ministry.

In any case, the serial murders file to date has taken a large number of victims and it has created much crisis for Khatami's government and the public. The closure of 'Salam Daily' was based on the disclosing of the content of an internal letter of the Ministry of Information, which indicated that the proposal for the revision of the laws governing the mass media, with the intention of limiting their scope, submitted to the Fifth Parliament, was initiated by Saeed Emami the main suspect in the dissident murder case.

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Mohsen Rahami represented the students in the storming of the university campus trial.

This led to the Tehran University Compound incident in July 8 1999 which developed into one week of protests and uprisings on Tehran's streets. The trial for the storming of the university compound subsequently came under discussion and Hojjatlislam Mohsen Rahami, the lecturer at the Law Faculty of the University of Tehran took the responsibility of representing the university students. The arrested students however were tried prior to the individuals who attacked the university compound. One of these students was Ahmad Batebi whose photograph showing him carrying a bloody shirt was printed on the cover of 'The Economist'. He was first convicted to death, and later his sentence was reduced to 15 years imprisonment. His guilt was propaganda against the Islamic Republic System.

Another incident to arise from this case was the discussion on the confessions of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi. During his confession, he confessed that hardline groups had a hand in the incident of the university compound. He also stated that he had received money from politicians and religious personalities in order to create unrest among the public.

These statements were prepared by Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, the attorney of the Forouhar family and Mohsen Rahami, the attorney of the students in the university compound incident. They had distributed the tape to official authorities such as the Ministry of State and the Military Court for inclusion in the case of those who attacked the university compound. But both attorneys were then prosecuted for "circulating lies" and preparing the tapes. Rahami, in the summer of 1999 had defended Abdullah Noori in the Special Clergy Court. Of the charges against Noori was his endeavour in following up the dissident murder case and his activities in this regard were labeled as a propagation of lies.

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Shirin Ebadi, the former attorney of the Forouhar family, was jailed and her permiti to practice as an attorney withdrawn.

Ebadi and Rahami were also tried and received verdicts from the court and their permits to be attorneys were canceled.

On December 10 2000 Nasser Zarafshan, the attorney of Mokhtari and Pooyandeh families was summoned by the Military court and arrested. The Military Court had arrested him on the grounds of divulging some classified information on the dissident murders to foreign media after having been given access to documents relating to the case.

Akbar Ganji is another of the victims of this case. He is a member of the Participation Front of Islamic Iran and in his articles he had claimed that he had access to the documents relating to the dissident muder case. Because of his participation in the Berlin Conference and because of his articles about the killings, he was also arrested and is presently in prison.

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Akbar Ganji during the first court session of his trial.

In his articles he had used such expressions as his 'Excellency Red Garmented' and their 'Excellencies Gray' and the 'Master Key'. He had recently stated in the Revolutionary Court that the Master Key is Ali Fallahian, the ex-minister of information. He was severely attacked by the conservatives for his statement and his allegations have been denied.

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Ali Fallahian, former Intelligence Minister, implicated by Akbar Ganji in the dissident murder case.

It must be mentioned that according to the directive issued by the Head of the Judiciary, the Military Court has been advised hence forth to charge all those who express strong views about the dissident murder case. It was for this reason that Saeed Hajjarian, the President's political advisor, was summoned by the Military Court for his statement that "the terrorism machinery had been in operation for several years and it was forgotten to turn it off after May 23 1997 (the day Khatami became President)" He was subsequently released on bail.

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Saeed Hajjarian, Managing Director of the reformist newspaper Sobh-e Emrouz (now banned), Presidential advisor and Vice Chairman of the Tehran City Council was shot in front of the Tehran City Council premises on March 12, 2000 and was seriously wounded.

Ali Shakoori, one of Tehran's representatives in Parliament and a member of the central council of the Participation Front of Islamic Iran, on December 10 had reported to parliamentary reporters that "Even with the convening of the trial court, all the dimensions and details of the case of the assassinations cannot be openly communicated to the public as our national security does not permit this."