Free Republic

Berlin, 12 Oct. (IPS) To the dismay and anger of the families of the victims, a German court has decided to free an Iranian charged 11 years ago for the assassination of four Iranians in a Berlin restaurant, including the then General Secretary of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK), two other members of the same Organisation and an opponent to the Islamic Republic. The Federal German Prosecutor announced on Wednesday that Mr. Kazem Darabi, the coordinator of the Iranian-Lebanese terror squad that assassinated Mr. Sadeq Sharafkandi, the General Secretary of the DPIK and three others on 17 September...

BERLIN (AFP) — Germany on Monday deported to Iran an alleged Iranian secret agent who was jailed for life in 1997 for murdering four Kurdish dissidents in Berlin, officials in the German capital said. Kazem Darabi's Lebanese accomplice, Abbas Rhayel, has also been freed after serving 15 years in jail and was deported last week, prosecuting authorities told AFP. A lawyer close to the case had earlier said that both men were to be deported on Monday night. Darabi, 48, and Rhayel, a suspected member of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah militia movement, were jailed for life for the 1992 murder...

Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hizbullah last summer, have been transferred to Iran, London-based Arab language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Sunday. According to the report, the captives were transferred to Iran shortly after the kidnapping in a special operation overseen by a senior Revolutionary Guard commander. A source at the headquarters of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the newspaper that the planned release of an Iranian prisoner held In Germany could be related to a possible deal regarding the captives. He claimed that as part of this German-Iranian deal, Germany would...