Iran official exposes Tehran's global assassination program as US trial of alleged regime hitmen continues

The Manhattan-based federal trial of two alleged contract killers hired by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to murder the Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad coincided with shocking revelations that Tehran ordered the assassinations of dissidents in Europe, news that could have profound implications for President Trump’s Iran policy.

The trial of the two suspects and the disclosures of a former founder of the U.S.-sanctioned terrorist organization IRGC that the ayatollahs ordered the murders of Iranians in exile add greater urgency to the need to address Iran’s threats to murder President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iranian-American critics of the regime, according to experts.

Mohsen Rafiqdoost, a former high-level IRGC official who also served as a bodyguard for the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared in a video interview that he oversaw operations to eliminate exiled Iranian dissidents.  

In an interview on the Iranian regime-controlled outlet Didehban-e Iran, he said the dissidents included former Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, the popular artist Fereydoun Farrokhzad, who was murdered in Bonn, Germany, and military officials Gholam-Ali Oveissi and Shahriar Shafiq.

Rafiqdoost said, "The Basque separatist group in Spain carried out these assassinations for us. We paid them, and they conducted the killings on our behalf."

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Alinejad was allegedly targeted by the Iranian regime in a foiled assassination attempt.  (Fox News)

Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), said, "Mohsen Rafiqdoost’s comments are an admission of guilt. They should be replayed whenever an Iranian official is interviewed by a Western journalist denying complicity in assassination plots. The trial beginning on Monday is a reminder that the regime’s terror threat is real, potentially lethal, and will not go away by just burying our heads in the sand."

Last week, foreign ministers from the G-7 democracies announced in a joint statement, "That Iran is the principal source of regional instability and must never be allowed to develop and acquire a nuclear weapon. They emphasized that Iran must now change course, de-escalate and choose diplomacy. They underscored the threat of Iran’s growing use of arbitrary detention and foreign assassination attempts as a tool of coercion."

The reference to "foreign assassination attempts" is an unusually tough collective rhetorical rebuke for Iran because of its efforts to assassinate Trump, Alinejad and Iranian dissidents across the globe.

In November, Fox News Digital reported that the Justice Department announced it thwarted an Iranian plot to kill Trump in the weeks leading up to the election. 

Iran expert Lisa Daftari told Fox News Digital, "This revelation about Iran’s global assassination campaign is a stark reminder of the lengths to which authoritarian regimes will go to silence dissent and exert control beyond their borders. It’s a blatant attack on international norms and a direct threat to global security. The United States must respond decisively – not just with words but with action. President Trump’s policy to deport those who espouse terrorism is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough to deter the mullahs."

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Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps march during a parade. The IRGC is designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. (Reuters)

Daftari, who is the editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, added, "We need stronger intelligence collaboration with our allies and increased pressure on the IRGC through sanctions and any other necessary punitive measures. The message must be clear – there is no place for state-sponsored terrorism on our soil."

The U.S. and Canada have classified the IRGC as a foreign terrorist entity. Despite numerous IRGC terrorism plots and assassinations in Europe, the United Kingdom and the European Union have opposed a designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, a German-Iranian expert on Tehran’s assassination campaigns, told Fox News Digital about the former leader of the IRGC: "He belongs to the group of conservative Islamists who have never hidden the crimes they committed. He takes pride in the fact that opponents of the regime were executed in exile."

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A huge mural of Ayatollah Khamenei, which includes a smaller one of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran, Iran, on March 8, 2020. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)

Fox News Digital sent a press query to the German federal prosecutor’s office and the prosecutor’s office in Bonn, where Farrokhzad was murdered, asking if they plan to reopen the case of Farrokhzad. 

Mina Ahadi, a prominent German-Iranian dissident, brought up the case of Iran’s former ambassador to Germany, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who is currently a researcher at Princeton University, and called for his arrest by authorities.

Fox News Digital reported in April 2024 that Mousavian allegedly oversaw the assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe in the 1990s, including Farrokhzad. Mousavian, who was Iran’s ambassador to Germany from 1990 to 1997, has vehemently denied the allegations that he was involved in the Iranian regime-ordered massacre of Kurdish dissidents at a Berlin restaurant in 1992.

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After Trump ordered a drone strike to kill the U.S. and EU-designated Iranian regime terrorist Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020, Mousavian paid tribute to Soleimani in a 2022 Iran TV program. Mousavian also went to Iran to attend the funeral of Soleimani, who was responsible for the murders of over 600 American military personnel in the Middle East, according to the U.S. government. 

Mousavian took to X on the so-called Chain Murders in Iran – an extensive Iranian regime state-sponsored campaign that eradicated important Iranian dissidents between 1986 and 1998. Mousavian said, "Fereydoun Farrokhzad was murdered in mid-August 1992 at his home in Bonn, Germany. At that time, I was the Iranian Ambassador to Germany, and along with my colleagues at the embassy, I made extensive efforts for the return of Iranians residing in Germany who wanted to return to Iran."

Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses the media during the voting for parliamentary elections in Tehran on May 10, 2024. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Mousavian's tweet noted, "We pursued the matter, and the relevant authorities in Tehran assured us that Farrokhzad had been assassinated by the Iranian opposition abroad. We then relayed Tehran’s position to the German authorities and in interviews."

His statement concluded, "I wish that figures like Farrokhzad, who were willing to return to their homeland, could have returned safely to their motherland. It is in Iran’s national interest to use the potential of Iranians living abroad and ensure their full security for their return to their homeland."

Mousavian did not respond to numerous Fox News Digital email press queries, including a WhatsApp message and telephone call.

Lawdan Bazargan, the Iranian-American human rights activist, said Iran’s regime had lured Iranian dissidents back to the country to later execute them. She cast doubt on Mousavian’s explanation that he sought to repatriate Farrokhzad. Bazargan cited the case of Javad Safar as a dissident who returned to Iran and was killed by the regime. Iran’s regime has employed sophisticated surveillance operations to lure prominent Iranian dissidents to countries with lax security to kidnap them and transport the dissidents to Iran. 

A telling example involved the journalist Ruhollah Zam, who was tricked by the regime and executed in 2020. Zam’s website and social media expertise helped spread information about protests against the clerical regime and exposed widespread regime corruption.

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Numerous Fox News Digital press queries sent to Iran’s foreign ministry and U.N. mission were not answered.

Fox News' Greg Norman contributed to this report.