Aboutalebi was born in Tehran in 1957, and he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1981 and as a diplomat assumed various responsibilities, serving as the regime’s ambassador to countries like Italy, Belgium, Australia and the EU for 15 years, Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 5 years, Advisor to Foreign Minister for 5 years, and as a member of the foreign ministry’s Strategic Council. He is also a member of the regime’s Strategic Council for Foreign Policy.
He was transferred to the intelligence section of the regime’s embassy in Paris. Two years later, he returned to Tehran and after that he was transferred to the regime’s embassy in Senegal. The Senegalese government declared him an undesirable element and he was forced to leave that country.
In 2013, Hassan Rouhani appointed Hamid Aboutalebi as the Political Deputy of the President’s Office. Aboutalebi is from the Rafsanjani-Rouhani faction, and he is a close aide to Rouhani. This relationship to the President has propelled Aboutalebi to the most sensitive post of the regime’s foreign policy, the center of relations with the United States.
Aboutalebi a Senior Diplomat-Terrorist
Aboutalebi was one of the architects of the hostage-taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Shortly after the 1979 revolution, an extremist group known as the Students Followers of the Imam’s Line occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 U.S. diplomats and citizens hostage. 444 days passed before the hostages were released.
To whitewash this record (which can have a negative effect in getting a U.S. visa), in his interview with Khabar Online, he stated that he was just an interpreter during the U.S. Embassy takeover.
Aboutalebi was a member of the Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line (referring to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini), the group that seized the U.S. Embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, and held American staff hostage until Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981.
Former American hostage Barry Rosen, held by student extremists at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for more than a year, said Monday it would be an ‘outrage’ and ‘disgrace’ if Washington gave a visa to one of the militants who participated in the embassy takeover.
‘It may be a precedent, but if the president and the Congress don’t condemn this act by the Islamic Republic, then our captivity and suffering for 444 days at the hands of Iran was for nothing,’ Rosen said. ‘He can never set foot on American soil.
The opposition inside the U.S. to allowing Aboutalebi inside the country is mounting, including the opposition of former hostage Barry Rosen and U.S. Senator John McCain.
Aboutalebi is a founder and member of a cell that exports fundamentalism. He travelled to Algeria in 1979 and laid the foundation for the Liberating Movements. The Iran Daily conducted an interview on November 18th, 2013 with Seyyed Mohammad Hashemi Esfehani, another one of the U.S. Embassy hostage takers.
In that interview, Hashemi Esfahani talks about Aboutalebi as one of the hostage-takers and says:
“In 1979, with the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran they marked another wave of the Islamic Revolution. And they began inviting ‘world’s liberating movements’. Mr. Abdi and Mr. Hamid Aboutalebi went to Algeria (in 1979) on behalf of the Muslim Students Followers of the Imam’s Line and invited seventeen liberating movements to Tehran.”
In the years that Hassan Rouhani was the Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, a number of assassinations were carried out inside Iran and abroad by the approval of this council. Rouhani played a key role in the planning of these assignations.
One of these assassinations was that of Mohammad-hossein Naghdi Representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Italy, who was killed on March 16th, 1993. Naghdi was formerly the Iranian regime’s Charge d’affaires to Italy, but later left the regime because of the flagrant and frequent violations of human rights. He joined the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
As revenge, the regime decided to assassinate Naghdi. Aboutalebi played a direct and active role in the reconnaissance and planning of this assassination.
Aboutalebi knew the assassination plan in detail and travelled to Tehran several times for coordination.
Despite this attempt, the Supreme Criminal Court of Rome, in a decision made in December 2008, named Aboutalebi as one of the culprits in the assassination. This 21-page decree was based on the accounts given by the eyewitnesses, extensive investigations by the Italian Police, and documents presented by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The decree states:
“Naghdi was assassinated due to his effective political activities in Italy, his talent in establishing connections with Italy’s political circles, his unquestionable humanitarian character, and his unceasing and unmasked struggle against the regime. The implementation of the plan was tasked to a terrorist team that had entered Italy in complete coordination with Iran’s diplomatic mission in Italy and in particular in coordination with Ambassador Aboutalebi, who organized and directed this team”.
According to the investigation, at the time of the assassination of Naghdi, Aboutalebi entered Italy using a pseudonym and forged documents to implement this crime. The police investigation, including accounts given by an informed witness, read:
“Naghdi’s murder should be considered a political one decided by Iranian government circles and in the framework of a general project to destroy the Resistance abroad. Naghdi was targeted in Italy because of the value and extent of his political activities in Italy. This assassination was decided by high-ranking political-religious figures in Tehran, and the execution of the plan was tasked to a team that had entered Italy for this specific purpose. The team had a direct connection with the diplomatic representative in Italy, and in particular with Ambassador Aboutalebi.”
Another section of the report by the Italy’s Criminal Police reads:
“Aboutalebi and Naghdi had known each other since the 1979 revolution. Aboutalebi’s personal interest in murdering Naghdi stemmed on the one hand from the fact that it was a religious duty to carry out this death sentence that was ordained by a fatwa, and on the other hand because of his several years of acquaintance with the victim, the Ambassador had the means to accomplish this death sentence with no risk. Moreover, such a project, if implemented in this fashion, would be fruitful for his personal goals and promotion.”
The appointment of a criminal terrorist by Rouhani as the regime’s Ambassador to the United Nations once again brings the reality to the eyes of the world that claims of Rouhani’s moderation are nothing but an absurd deception.
This regime and its representatives and diplomats, who are generally involved in torture, execution, espionage, and terrorism against their opposition, should be banished and expelled from the international community.
