Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.
Iranwire – Four days after the ceasefire between Iran and the United States began, an 85-member Iranian delegation sat across from their American counterparts in Islamabad, Pakistan, to begin negotiations to end the 40-day war. Among the negotiators was Mohammad Jafari Sahraroudi, a man recognizable by the scars on his shoulder and jaw from the summer of 1989 in Vienna.
He is the prime suspect, identified by Austrian police, in the assassination of Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Secretary-General of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI); Abdullah Qaderi-Azar, the party’s representative in Paris; and Fadel Rasoul, a Kurdish intellectual who hosted the meeting. Sahraroudi was never tried for these crimes.
Who is Mohammad Jafari Sahraroudi?
This is not the first time Sahraroudi, the leader of the team that negotiated with Ghassemlou in Vienna, has appeared in the media as a diplomat. During Ali Larijani’s tenure as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Sahraroudi served on Iran’s nuclear negotiating team at the start of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency.
For years, Sahraroudi was the Chief of Staff to Ali Larijani, who was killed in an airstrike on March 17, 2026. His proximity to Larijani and the reformist faction was so significant that he was tasked with organizing Hassan Rouhani’s 2017 presidential inauguration. At the time, his role in receiving international guests sparked fierce criticism, with many asking why a commander of a “death squad” was permitted to appear in such a capacity.
The assassination of Dr. Ghassemlou was likely not a rogue operation by Sahraroudi, but a direct order from the Islamic Republic’s senior leadership. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s private journals from the period reveal his deep anxiety regarding Sahraroudi’s arrest and potential trial in Austria.
In his entry dated July 25, 1989, twelve days after the assassination, Rafsanjani wrote: “Mr. Mahdinejad [Fereydoun Verdi-Nejad, an IRGC commander] came and spoke about Ghassemlou’s murder. Now that the accusations have been cleared, the Austrians have treated us well; they have acquitted Jafari [Sahraroudi] and sent him back to Iran with formal honors.”
Austrian police reports at the time indicated that the bullet Sahraroudi fired at Ghassemlou likely ricocheted and struck Sahraroudi himself, explaining his presence in a Viennese hospital following the killings.
The darkest chapter of Sahraroudi’s record is the assassination of the Kurdish leaders, but it is not the only one. Following the Iran-Iraq War, he spent years commanding the “Ramadan Headquarters” of the IRGC in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This branch of the Revolutionary Guard was specifically tasked with suppressing Iranian Kurdish citizens and political parties.
In fact, his appointment to lead the Ramadan Headquarters upon his return from Vienna appears to have been a reward for his role in the assassination of the PDKI leaders.
Sahraroudi was not alone in Vienna. He was accompanied by Ghafour Darjazi, who entered Austria under the false identity “Amir Mansour Bozorgian.” Today, he goes by the name Mostafa Modabber and is active in the Iranian football industry, which is under the firm control of the IRGC.
As Sahraroudi now appears on the international stage as a “diplomat” in Islamabad, his history remains a testament to the Islamic Republic’s long-standing reliance on those who have carried out its most violent operations to represent it at the negotiating table.
What Do We Know About the Assassination of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and the Role of Sahraroudi?
On July 13, 1989, just weeks after the death of Ruhollah Khomeini, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and Abdullah Qaderi-Azar, leaders of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), were assassinated alongside Fadel Rasoul, a Kurdish political activist from Iraq, at Rasoul’s home in Vienna. This was the third meeting between the PDKI leadership and representatives of the Islamic Republic.
Sahraroudi led the Islamic Republic’s negotiating team. The meetings had been initiated by Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader from Iraq and a friend of Dr. Ghassemlou, who was present at the earlier sessions. However, in audio recordings secretly made by Dr. Ghassemlou, portions of which were first broadcast by BBC Persian in 2019, Sahraroudi is heard suggesting that, given Talabani’s “temperament,” it would be better if he did not attend further meetings.
It appears the exclusion of Talabani was a tactical move to facilitate the assassination. The third meeting saw the appearance of an individual under the fake name “Amir Mansour Bozorgian.” Bozorgian was, in fact, Ghafour Darjazi-Doulagh, an IRGC operative who, in recent years, entered the Iranian football scene under the name “Mostafa Modabber,” eventually holding the management of Saipa football club for years.
The Vienna Incident and Escape
Reports from the scene indicate that all three Kurdish participants were shot at point-blank range. On the Iranian side, only Sahraroudi was wounded. BBC Persian, citing police reports, noted that the bullet fired from Sahraroudi’s weapon toward Ghassemlou likely ricocheted and struck Sahraroudi himself.
Photographs from the time show Sahraroudi in a Vienna hospital bed. A PDKI member told the BBC that he saw Darjazi in police custody at the hospital that same night. Despite this, Sahraroudi, Darjazi, and a third individual named Ajoudi were released a few days later and moved to the Iranian Embassy in Vienna, while PDKI supporters kept watch outside to prevent them from fleeing Austria.
According to some reports, on the day of Dr. Ghassemlou’s funeral, Sahraroudi and his team managed to exit the embassy and return to Iran. Two months later, the Austrian prosecutor issued a warrant for Sahraroudi’s arrest; five months later, an international arrest warrant followed. Despite being a wanted man, he has traveled abroad as a “diplomat” numerous times over the years, particularly during the 26 months when Ali Larijani led Iran’s nuclear negotiating team during the Ahmadinejad administration.
Failed Attempts and Continued Influence
There have been attempts to capture him. On January 11, 2007, U.S. military forces raided the Islamic Republic’s consulate in Erbil, Iraq, and detained seven staff members. The raid was specifically intended to capture Sahraroudi, but he managed to escape and return to Iran by land. Four months later, he appeared as a member of the Iranian delegation at a conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, regarding Iraq’s stability, where he sat across from then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
From Repression to “Diplomacy”
Over the 38 years since the assassination, Sahraroudi has held numerous high-ranking positions:
Commander of the IRGC’s Ramadan Headquarters.Close aide to Ali Larijani, including as Deputy Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.His accomplice, Ghafour Darjazi, served as head of security for state media (IRIB) during Larijani’s tenure as its director.
Despite these roles, Sahraroudi remained deeply involved in the suppression of Kurdish movements. Now, despite an international warrant, he has traveled to Islamabad to negotiate with a U.S. delegation. In the absence of Ali Larijani, he participated in talks reportedly overseen by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. These negotiations are taking place amidst a power vacuum following the death of Ali Khamenei and the contested succession of his son, Mojtaba, a transition that has triggered intense infighting among new power blocs within the Iranian regime.
