Source:

February 10, 2010

PARIS — A French terrorism judge postponed to March 9 a parole judgement on an Iranian agent serving life in France for the 1991 murder of the shah’s last prime minister, legal sources said Wednesday.

Ali Vakili Rad was convicted in 1994 of stabbing Shapour Bakhtiar to death at his home in Suresnes, west of Paris, on August 7, 1991. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole until July 2, 2009.

His lawyer Sorin Margulis said the court near Paris decided on Wednesday to wait for a government order to expel Vakili Rad before ruling whether to grant him parole. He has applied to be paroled and also expelled from France.

“The court is favourable to this parole request but is waiting for the expulsion order,” Margulis told AFP. A court source said the next hearing was set for March 9.

The parole request came before the judge at a time when France is seeking the release from Iran of 24-year-old French academic Clotilde Reiss, who has been tried on charges of acting against Iranian national security.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has linked Reiss’s release to the fate of Iranian nationals held in French jails. Margulis and French authorities have denied any link between Reiss’s case and the rulings on Vakili Rad.

Reiss, who has been staying at the French embassy in Tehran during her trial, was arrested on July 1 shortly before she was due to fly home after a six-month study and teaching stint in the city of Isfahan.

She was accused of taking and emailing photos of the protests that erupted after the disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad in June, and handing material to a diplomat at the French embassy in Tehran.