He has skreet cred
Via The Telegraph
An Iranian diplomat that America is refusing to accept as Tehran’s next ambassador to the United Nations was implicated in the death of an Iranian dissident in Rome in the 1990s, court documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph reveal.
Hamid Abutalebi was accused of overseeing the alleged assassination by Iranian agents of Mohammad Hossein Naghdi in Rome in 1993 when he was the Iranian ambassador in Italy.
The White House declared Mr Abutalebi’s nomination to head the Islamic Republic’s UN delegation “not viable” on Tuesday, effectively announcing that he would not be granted a visa to enter the US.
Iran reacted angrily to the announcement from Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, which came after the US Senate adopted a resolution calling on the Obama administration to deny Mr Abutalebi a visa for his role as one of the hostage takers who stormed the American embassy after the revolution in 1979.
In fact, allegations against Mr Abutalebi are much more recent. Court papers, including transcripts of interviews conducted by the Caribineri during the investigation into Naghdi’s death, allege that he played a key role in covert operations in the 1990s.
Mr Naghdi was a former Iranian diplomat who worked at Tehran’s Rome embassy under the Shah. In 1982, angered by the suppression of dissidents after the revolution, he defected to the opposition People’s Mujahadeen, which is hated by the Islamic Republic.
Mr Naghdi was shot on a Rome street in a murder that has never been solved. Investigations continued into the case until 2008 when the Rome Supreme Court published evidence, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, that the Iranian state had ordered his death.
Abolghasem Mesbahi, a former Iranian intelligent agent based in Germany, alleged to the police investigation that the agent sent from Tehran to kill Mr Naghdi was supervised and controlled in Italy by Mr Abutalebi.