Behind the Headlines/January 15

In tonight’s program;

Iran’s much publicised attempt to put a new satellite in the orbit fails after having spent millions of dollars on the project;

Hassan Rouhani implies in his latest speech that Iran may resume its uranium enrichment operations as the future of the nuclear deal looks uncertain;

Back in 2007 on this day, Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshir Hosseinpour who opposed the regime’s ambition of arming itself with nuclear bomb was assassinated.

Tonight we speak to his sister Mahboobeh who has fled Iran and now reveals how her brother was killed by the regime.

Mahboobeh Hosseinpour:

12 years after that crime at the hands of the Iranian regime, its devastating affects on me and my family have not disappeared.

For an innocent man like my brother to become a victim of this regime for keeping his honour and sense of humanity I feel obliged to tell the world his story so that no other person will ever go through the same injustice.

The Iranian regime had blamed the Mossad for murdering my brother. But all the evidence point to the fact that the operation was carried by the intelligence unit of the Revolutionary Guard.

Except for executing Majid Jamali Fashin on suspicious charges, the regime has not been able to arrest or charge anyone else for the assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists, because they have all been carried out by its own agents.
Witnesses to the crime scene have told us that they killed my brother by sending poisonous gas through a pipe into his house.

I raised this with three human rights lawyers at the time but none of them dared to take on the case. I then fled Iran and even in exile I approached Shirin Ebadi who also refused to at least mention my account of the death of my brother, never mind representing me.