WASHINGTON DC – A chapter of the New York Bar Association is for the first time presenting an award for “Upholding the Rule of Law.”
It goes to two German state prosecutors whose persistence and work led to a stunning 1997 German court ruling that found Iran’s top leaders complicit in the assassination of Sadegh Sharafkandi, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI).
Alexander von Stahl, Senior Attorney General of Germany and Bruno Jost, a federal prosecutor who is now retired, have been praised for winning convictions in the case against four men, including Kazem Darabi, who was identified as an Iranian intelligence agent.
After a five-year trial the prosecutors announced that the murder of Sharafkandi, who was killed together with two other Kurdish leaders and their translator, was a state-ordered assassination. Iran’s top leaders were found complicit in the 1992 killings at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin.
The landmark case, in which the court issued an arrest warrant for Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahiyan and named Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as one of the accomplices, exposed decades of Iranian state-sponsored assassinations in Europe.
Until then, European governments including Germany, Austria and France had turned a blind eye on Iranian assassinations on their soil in order to preserve business interests with the oil-rich Islamic Republic.
The historic judgment concluded in an unprecedented diplomatic shift between Iran and Europe as every European Union member withdrew its ambassador and cut ties with Iran.
Stohl and Jost will receive their award, by the Southern District of the New York Federal Bar Association, at an event featuring a panel discussion with former US ambassador J.D. Bindenagel and Roya Hakakian, author of the acclaimed Assassins of the Turquoise Palace
Hakakian, a poet and autobiographer turned investigative reporter, has put together a painstaking account of the Mykonos assassinations and its far-reaching political and legal aftermath that is more tangled than a riveting thriller novel.
She told Rudaw she was excited about the event and recognition granted to the two German prosecutors.
“It is important for the story of victims of human rights violations in Iran, by Iran, not be forgotten,” Hakakian said.
She confessed she began working on her book because she was fascinted about why this particular trial had remained on course and delivered justice, where so many similar trials around the world had become derailed by pressure or other reasons.
Hakakian said that during the course of the trial Iran tried pressure and other tactics it had used in the past to deflect blame in other killings. But she said those efforts failed because of the independence of the German judiciary. She added that no amount of political pressure could prevent the court doing its job from start to end.
“What became very fascinating to me was how inept and incapable political actors become when there is a truly independent justice system that is not beholden or indebted to politicians for its existence and why justice can actually thrive under such circumstances,” said Hakakian.
She added: “In the United States, for instance, many judges on higher levels are political appointees. But in Germany they are not, which means they don’t have to rely on their relation with politicians in order to become judges or rise in their career or professional success. That is what makes for an independent justice system, which affected the outcome of the case.”
Hakakian also pointed to the case of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, who was assassinated three years before Sharafkandi at a meeting in Vienna with Iranian government agents.
She noted that the Germans and Austrians had billions in trade relations with Iran, and for the longest time they had allowed assassinations to go on as long as the victims were not their citizens.
Hakakian said that the outcome of the Sharafkandi case opened a window of hope for the world’s Kurds, in their larger struggle for justice and rights.
“That it is possible to justice or be recognized even after a very long time -- in this case 20 years -- should give all the Kurdish people hope,” she said. “There is hope one day to receive justice, even if it comes a little later.”
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