One example is the fatwa against British writer Salman Rushdie. In April, a Berlin court held that the Supreme Leader Khamenei, President Hashemi-Rafsanjani and Minister of Intelligence and Security Fallahian had ordered the 1992 killings of three Kurdish Iranian dissidents and their translator at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin. The trial revealed persuasive evidence that government agents were responsible for the killings and that senior Iranian government officials had ordered them. A total of 91 mostly Kurdish oppositionists based in Iraq were reported to have been killed by the Iranian regime in 1997, as a result both of targeted killings and armed clashes. Mollah Ahmad Khezri and Majid Sulduzi, Iranian Kurds who had fled to Iraq in 1992, were reportedly handed over to the Iranian authorities by members of the Kurdish Revolutionary Hizbullah after they were abducted at a check-point in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iranian officials deny having information on their whereabouts.
Sarkuhi was rearrested in late January 1997 and sentenced to one year in prison. He was released early in 1998. Iranian prisons hold thousands of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience. Some are detained without charge or trial. Others are serving long prison sentences after unfair trials.