Nov. 14, 2011 - Police in Dubai and
the Associated Press initially claimed that the death of Ahmad Rezai,
the 35-year old son of former REvolutionary Guards Commander, Maj. Gen.
Mohsen Rezai, was a suicide. But now even the office of the
Supreme Leader has acknowledged that the younger Rezai was murdered in
the Gloria Hotel in Dubai. The initial police report quoted by the AP
claims he was found with a slit wrist, but Iranian websites and Rezai's
father's Tabnak website say that he was found dead under "suspicious
circumstances," apparently electrocuted.
The regime had good cause to murder the younger Rezai, who initially
fled to the United States in 1997 and denounced the regime and its
ongoing assassination campaign against Iranian dissidents. An American
citizen, Ahmad Rezai has a daughter in the United States, and has tried
repeatedly to travel to Iran to visit his family, but has been turned
back several times and threatened with arrest. According to an
unconfirmed report, he was escorted back to Dubai earlier today by two
Quds force officers, shortly before he was murdered.
FDI salutes the courage of Ahmad Rezai and will investigate those
responsible for his murder and expose them as more information becomes
available.
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Links to stories on Ahmad Rezai: 1998
interview with VOA Persian Service TV host Bijan Farhoodi (with
English subtitles thanks to Shahram Assadollahi); Iconoclast story summing up murder theories Time magazine links to IRGC missile depot explosion the day before 1998 interview with The Iran Brief Exclusive account of efforts to kidnap him in 1999 in Costa Rica |
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| Read an excerpt about Ahmad
Rezai from Countdown
to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran |
Kenneth R. Timmerman is Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran.