Assassins of the Turquoise Palace

Assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian, Grove Press, 2011. 

This book is about the assassination of four Kurdish dissidents at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin by agents sent by the leadership of Iran. Khomeini had a hit list of Iranian dissidents who had fled abroad. Prior to the Berlin restaurant massacre, Iranian agents had already attacked dissidents in Paris, Manila, Bombay, Karachi, Istanbul, Vienna, Geneva, Stockholm, and Tokyo. Iranian agents captured and held hostage European nationals, so that in return for releasing the hostages, European governments would allow Iranian agents to infiltrate into Europe and assassinate Iranian dissidents. Chancellor Helmut Kohl apologized to Iran for hurting Iran’s feelings by investigating Iran’s possible involvement in the Mykonos assassinations.

After the Shah Reza Pahlavi fled in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini, a Shia Muslim, promised that when he returned to Iran, he would live in the holy city of Qom to continue his religious studies. But after arriving in Iran, he settled in Tehran and began persecuting various minorities. Most of Iran’s 4 million Kurds were Sunni Muslims and lived in the Zagros Mountains in the northwest. Kurdish Iran became a haven for dissidents, which is one reason Khomeini persecuted the Kurds. The Turquoise Palace is where the Committee for Special Operations met to arrange the assassinations of the Kurds in Germany. 

The assassinations occurred during the evening of 17 September, 1992 at the Mykonos Restaurant in Berlin. The four men who were killed were Kurdish exiles from Iran. All except Noori Dehkordi were members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. The victims were: Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan, Mohammad Sadegh Sharafkandi, and Noori Mohammadpour Dehkordi. The handgun used in the assassinations was traced to a 1972 shipment to the Iranian Royal Army. Hamid Nowzari (political activist who helped prevent German politicians from covering up Iran’s involvement in the assassinations).