Masoud Alimohammadi
Assassinated in Tehran. 12 January 2010
University of Tehran photo
Iran’s semi-official news agency Fars reported today that pro-monarhist Takavaran Tondar group was responsible for the assassination of Dr. Masoud Alimohammadi. The group immediately disavowed the claim and accused Iranian intelligence agents of hacking its website and “plotting a hoax” with “publishing” a claim of responsibility for the terrorist attack.
Senior Iranian officials have also accused US and Israel for the attack.
The Iranian offical and semi-oficial media were silent today on the assertions by physics experts inside Iran and abroad that Dr. Alimohammadi was a theoritical physicist and was not a nuclear scientist, as earlier claimed by Iran. The designation of nuclear scientist would have made it easier for the Iranian officials to continue claiming foreign consiparicy behind the assassianation.
4 comments:
According to Asia Times Online correspondent Mahan Abedin, Mohammadi had a string of affiliations to scientific and research organizations at the center of Iran's nuclear program, such as the Theoretical Physics Institute headed by Mohammad Javad Larijani. So in a way, he may be regarded as an element of the program, and by extension refrred to as a "nuclear scientist"- if only by connection. And, as we all know, it's not unusual for Iran's news media to fudge details- particularly on military and national security subjects- and clarifications are rare.
I think Iranians know, who is actually the financer, (Israel) and who the hitman, (Pejvak).
So did the Mullahs have him killed because they thought he was sharing details of the nuclear program with foreign intelligence agents?
Schmedlap 12:05 AM
No, there is not a question of "sharing nuclear secrets." He was not involved in the nuclear industries, but was a specialist in mainly theoretical and particle physics.
This is confirmed by the list of his publications and other things.
Also, none of the Western agencies that monitor Iran's nuclear activities or the IAEA had ever heard of Prof. Alimohammadi.
He was killed because he was an outspoken critic of the regime. He had signed a number of petitions and was holding "open floor" sessions at the University of Tehran, where critical students were allowed to vent their views on the regime.
His views were that there must be patience and yet ways to avoid violence in the struggle for democracy.
His last "open floor" session was on January 6 and the audio recordings of this session are here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J5SxFCVS2s (Sorry, but it is only in Persian!)
If the regime suspects anyone of sharing information, they do not eliminate them in this way. They would arrest them, pump them for information and then finish them off.
This was a warning to other academics to stay quiet and stop issueing various petitions (which they have been doing). This message has been heard loud and clear.
About 13-14 years ago, elements of the security services also embarked on physical eliminations of opposition figures and blamed them on "foreign enemies."
These death squads were wrapped up under the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, but after more than 4 years of Ahadinejad rule, they seem to have come back.
As to why they picked this particular vitim, it is not clear. In the past too, the death squads usually assassinated rather unknown and obscure opposition figures instead of the leading personalities.
We can speculate on the reasons for this preference, but perhaps anther time...
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