Killer of former Iranian PM to be freed in France

[May 18, 2010]  PARIS (AP) -- An Iranian jailed for life in France for assassinating Iran's last prime minister under its ousted shah was freed Tuesday and will be allowed to return home, raising speculation that he is part of a prisoner exchange deal between the two countries.

Caption: Ali Vakili Rad, center, who was convicted of killing Shahpour Bakhtiar, the last Iranian prime minister under the ousted Shah of Iran in 1991, leaves the Poissy prison outside Paris on Tuesday. Vakili Rad is the second Iranian freed by French courts in less than two weeks, leading to speculation of a deal between Paris and Tehran to obtain freedom for a young French academic, convicted by Iran of spying, who returned home Sunday. The other people in the car are French police officers. (AP photo by Michel Euler)

Ali Vakili Rad -- convicted of killing Shahpour Bakhtiar in 1991 -- will be sent back to Tehran, where he is regarded as a hero by Iran's leaders for killing someone they considered a counterrevolutionary.

French law allows for his early release, the prosecutor's office in Paris said Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast welcomed Vakili Rad's expected return.

"To see him in Iran after years, we are pleased," Mehmanparast said at his weekly news conference, held just before the announcement from Paris.

Vakili Rad left the prison in Poissy, outside Paris, under police escort Tuesday and went in a three-car motorcade toward Paris' Orly airport.

He is the second Iranian freed by French courts in less than two weeks, leading to speculation that Paris struck a deal with Tehran in exchange for a young French academic's freedom after she was convicted by Iran of spying and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

French officials have denied any dealmaking to obtain the liberation of Clotile Reiss, who returned to France on Sunday after her sentence was commuted and replaced with a fine of 3 billion rials ($300,000). Reiss had been arrested July 1 in postelection violence in Iran.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told Associated Press Television News on Monday he had no knowledge of such bargaining, and that such questions cast "doubts about the independence of the French justice system."

Vakili Rad's attorney, Sorin Margulis, also has denied any deal had been made, saying "my client was in a position to be freed before the arrest of Miss Reiss."

A French appeals court ruled July 2 that Vakili Rad could be given conditional freedom. The final decision was postponed twice.

France has cut deals with Iran in the past to obtain freedom for French citizens.

In 1990, France pardoned a Lebanese man convicted for a failed attack on Bakhtiar that killed two other people in 1980. Anis Naccache and his four accomplices were expelled to Tehran. Naccache's freedom had been demanded by Iranian-backed terrorists who set off deadly bombs around Paris in 1986.

Bakhtiar, a moderate opposition leader made Iran's prime minister in a bid by the shah to save the crumbling monarchy from revolutionary fervor, fled to France when the shah was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Bakhtiar was killed in 1991, at the age of 76, in his home in the western Paris suburb of Suresnes.

Vakili Rad was found guilty in 1994 of killing Bakhtiar and sentenced to life in prison. During Vakili Rad's trial, the prosecution representing the state maintained that Iran was behind the slayings. Two other Iranians were convicted for logistical roles in the killing, and two other alleged killers were never caught.

Tuesday's decision by the Paris Court of Appeals to free Vakili Rad had been considered likely after the French Interior Ministry issued an expulsion order Monday.

The French prosecutor's office said it was able to order Vakili Rad's release because he had asked to be sent back to Iran. French law allows expulsion for foreigners with no ties to France once they are released.

It was not immediately clear whether Vakili Rad had received an up-to-date passport in time to fly home Tuesday.

[Associated Press; By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD]

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