NCRI protests Swiss decision to drop investigation into murder of opposition figure

Paris-based Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) protested on Monday Swiss prosecutors’ plans to close the case against 14 suspects in the 1990 assassination of opposition figure Kazem Rajavi.

Rajavi was killed after being shot six times in the village of Coppet, near Geneva, on April 24, 1990.

Swiss authorities said at the time that 13 Iranians were involved in the assassination, most of whom arrived in Switzerland with a diplomatic passport.

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Rajavi was Iran’s first Ambassador to the UN headquarters in Geneva following the 1979 revolution. Shortly after his appointment, he resigned his post in protest to what he described as “Iran’s ruling clerics’ repressive policies and terrorist activities.”

He was the older brother of Masoud Rajavi – the founder of the NCRI – which is currently headed by Masoud’s wife, Maryam Rajavi.

The opposition group said on Monday that it received a copy of a letter from the prosecution office in the western Swiss canton of Vaud, where Coppet is located, stating that the investigation into Rajavi’s assassination would soon be dropped as the statute of limitation in the case had expired.

The maximum statute of limitation in Switzerland for most cases is 30 years.

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In a statement, the NCRI urged the Swiss authorities to keep the case open as well as issue international arrest warrants for those who ordered and perpetrated the assassination.

The opposition group accused Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as President Hassan Rouhani, who was the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council at the time of the assassination, of being involved in ordering the assassination.