No, he isn’t the man in the photo, and very likely wasn’t directly involved in the hostage-taking at the US embassy in Tehran, but he was involved in the assassination of three dissident Kurdish leaders in Vienna in 1989. Amir Taheri has the details:
Ahmadinejad was one of two emissaries chosen by Khamenei to meet the Kurds and invite them to return home and work within the framework of the Islamic Republic.
The Kurdish team was led by Abdulrahman Ghassemlou, Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK).
It included three members two of whom, Abdullah Qaderi-Azar and Fazel Rassuli died alongside Ghassemlou in the attack. The third Sadeq Sharafkandi escaped only to be murdered, three years later in Berlin, by another hit-squad.
The meeting was held in a hotel room in Vienna and the proceedings were secretly taped by the Kurds. Just days after the tragedy, I was able to listen to some of the three tapes, courtesy of a close associate of Ghassemlou.
My notes of the time show that Ahmadinejad was the key negotiator from Tehran. In one particularly interesting segment there is a debate between Ghassemlou and Ahmadinejad.
The Kurdish leader demands that the Islamic Republic accept the principle of Kurdish autonomy before his party can return to Iran and work within the regime.
Ahmadinejad starts his reply with convoluted references to the “principles of pure Islamic rule” as set out by Ali Ibn Abutalib, the fourth Caliph, and concludes that there could be no autonomy in Islam since all Muslims must live under the same “divine authority.”
He then makes an oblique reference to the fact that Ghassemlou and his party had collaborated with Saddam Hussain during Iraq’s war against Iran, implying that the Kurdish leaders should be glad that they are allowed to return home without facing charges of high treason.
He also warns Ghassemlou to be on guard against attempts by the Soviet Union to incite Iranian minorities to secession.
The third tape ends with the sound of shots as if fired by handguns plus cries of confusion by the victims. Ahmadinejad’s voice can also be heard shouting: “That way, that way!” presumably, warning the attackers not to shoot him by mistake.
Did Ahmadinejad know about the plot to kill the Kurds or did he go to Vienna believing that he was to negotiate Ghassemlou’s return to Iran? There is no satisfactory answer.
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