From: hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem)
Subject:  Protesters face charges in seizing of city's Iranian mission
Reply-To: hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem)
Organization: North Carolina State University
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 14:57:06 GMT


Reposted from soc.culture.iranian (thanks to Amir Taghavi):

        NEW YORK (UPI) -- Five Iranian sympathizers who seized and wrecked the
offices of the Iranian mission to the United Nations and held three men
hostage for about two hours were scheduled to face federal charges
Monday.
        The demonstrators in New York briefly seized hostages at the Iranian
mission while in London they stoned the Iranian Embassy and firebombed
an airlines office to protest Iran's air strikes against rebels hiding
in Iraq.
        No injuries were reported in either incident Sunday.
        In New York, the unarmed protesters supporting the Iranian rebels
were arrested about two hours after they took control of the mission at
622 Third Ave. in Manhattan at 1:37 p.m., said police spokeswoman Sgt.
Mary Wrensen.
        Three hostages were initially captured, but police officers helped
two men escape through a back door shortly after the incident began. The
remaining hostage was released unharmed.
        All five suspects were scheduled for arraignment in U.S. District
Court in Manhattan Monday to face federal charges of violating the
Protection of Foreign Officials Act, police said.
        The suspects allegedly wrecked the office space, ruining computers,
televisions and furniture before surrendering, said Sgt. Nick Vreeland,
a police spokesman. They also spray-painted anti-Khomeini slogans on the
walls.
        Two of the suspects were identified as Iranian students living in New
York. One suspect lives in California and two others reside in Toronto.
        Mayor David Dinkins and Police Chief David Scott, FBI agents and U.N.
officials rushed to the mission, located in a high-rise building,
shortly after the hostage-taking took place at the hands of supporters
of the rebel group.
        The police negotiating team talked with the protesters and the third
hostage, whose identity was not immediately disclosed, was freed.
        The five protesters arrested at 3:50 p.m., Wrensen said.
        The protest was called in response to a report from Iran's official
news agency saying Iranian warplanes crossed into Iraqi territory and
``heavily pounded'' positions of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization, a
Iranian rebel group that bases itself inside Iraq.
        ``This action was a revenge,'' Wrensen said.
        In London, about 50 people, blaming Iranian President Hashemi
Rafsanjani for the raid, gathered shortly before 3 p.m. outside the
Iranian Embassy, throwing rocks and other objects at the building while
chanting, ``Rafsanjani, terrorist!''
        The demonstrators broke windows on the embassy's ground floor and
caused other minor damage to the building before police arrived and
arrested a man and a woman, a Scotland Yard spokesman said. The crowd
spent another three hours outside the building under the watch of police
before leaving.
        Shortly before 6 p.m. a gasoline bomb was thrown at the Iran Air
office on Piccadilly in downtown London, causing minor damage to the
building, the spokesman said. Two men and one woman were later detained
in connection with the incident, he said.
        In New York, police identified the arrested suspects as Mehrdad
Safari, 24, of Toronto; Asad Daryani, 30, of Queens; Ali Fattahi, 32, of
Toronto; Amir Farokhy, 32, of Anaheim, Calif.; and Kambis Parvaresh, 34,
a Manhattan resident.
        All five men claimed to be part of the National Iranian Mission, a
unit of the People's Mujhadin Organization in Bagdad, Wrensen said.
        Safari and Parvaresh are students. The other suspects are unemployed,
she said.
        All five were being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility.