Mykonos Murderer Walks
October 11, 2007
Darabi and his Lebanese accomplice, Abbas Rhayel, were sentenced in 1997 for gunning down four members of the Kurdish opposition in the "Mykonos" restaurant in the German capital in 1992. Both Darabi and Rhayel could now be released as early as December, federal prosecutor Frank Wallenta said.
Under German law, life sentences are reviewed by authorities after 15 years to decide whether the guilty party can be released. The five years Darabi spent in jail before he was convicted counted towards his life sentence.
When Darabi was arrested for the murders, the investigation and subsequent trial sparked a diplomatic crisis between Berlin and Tehran with German authorities accusing the highest levels of the Iranian government of responsibility for the attacks. At the time, Darabi was called an Iranian secret agent.
At his sentencing in 1997, the Berlin court which tried Darabi said that because of the severity of his crime, he should be held in custody beyond the usual 15 years. Thursday’s ruling by the federal prosecutor's office marks a surprise reversal of that ruling.
The decision to release Darabi has been criticized by the Israeli government which had appealed to Germany not to release the Iranian.
Israel opposes Darabi release
According to Thursday's Ha'aretz newspaper, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a personal plea to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an attempt to convince Berlin not to release Darabi. The newspaper reported that Merkel rebuffed his appeal, telling him that the authorities would follow the letter of the law.
The Ha'aretz report also claimed that Israel wanted to use Darabi as part of a deal brokered between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004 in which 400 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for the bodies of three Israeli soldiers killed in 2000 and Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman.
Another aspect of the deal was that Darabi would be released if Hezbollah offered information on the captured Israeli air force navigator Ron Arad, but the deal fell through, the report said.
Iran proposed swap for German Klein
There were also indications that Iran, which had strived for the past 10 years to have Darabi released, had Darabi at the heart of a plan involving prisoner swaps.
The Iranian government allegedly spoke with representatives of the German government over a deal involving jailed German fisherman Donald Klein who was released from prison in Tehran earlier this year.
Klein had been held captive since 2005 after illegally straying into Iranian waters with French companion Stephane Lherbier while on a fishing expedition. Klein and Lherbier were released in March.