Darioush Rezaei-Nejad c.1976 (Kurdish city Abdanan,Ilam Province) – 23 July 2011(Tehran); was an Iranian physicist engineer who was assassinated in east Tehran by gunmen in July 2011.
Rezaeinejad was killed by motorcycle borne gunmen in July 2011 outside the front gate of the family home, while he was driving home with his wife,after picking up their daughter, Armita, from kindergarten.[1] His wife was also wounded in the attack.[2][3]
Initial reports, including from the semi-official ISNA agency, identified the victim as Darioush Rezaei, a 46-year-old physicist whose area of expertise is neutron transport and is known to be involved in Iran's nuclear program.[4][5]
When news of the assassination broke, the speaker of Iran's parliament suggested the United States and Israel had killed Rezaeinejad. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland stated, "We were not involved. Our sympathies are obviously with the family of the victim."[8] Rezaeinejad is the fourth scientist "allegedly associated" with Iran's nuclear program to have been killed by bomb, gunshot or poisoning since 2007.[9]
Analyst Afshon Ostovar writes, "I suspect, just based on what's known in the Iranian media reporting, that Rezaeinejad was assassinated because of his relationship to Iran's nuclear programme".[10]
On the other hand, Rezaeinejad and co-author Mojtaba Dadashnejad had been doing research on high-voltage switches, that are used both in detonators for nuclear weapons and missiles and in many nonmilitary applications.[11][12]
Darioush’s wife would also state in a later interview that the engineer had been a member of the Iranian nuclear program and had received anonymous threats prior to his death. Tehran blamed the United States and Israel for the killing. The United States denied the charge, while Israeli government social-media accounts suggestively expressed that it did not condemn the killings, whoever might have perpetrated them.
References and notes
Koring, Paul (Jun. 18 2012 (last updated); first published: May. 25 2012). "The undeclared war on Iran's nuclear program". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2013-04-12.
"Iran: Scientist shot dead in Tehran". (BBC). 23 July 2011.
Iranian Scientist Gunned Down at Home, Scott Shane, 24 July 2011, The New York Times
AP Photo (24 July 2011). "Photo of the Day". Yahoo! News. Retrieved 4 October 2012. "Iranians carry coffin of Darioush Rezaeinejad, in a funeral ceremony, on Sunday, July 24, 2011, in Tehran, Iran, after he was killed in a deadly shooting on Saturday. Iran said the victim was a university student _ not a physicist involved in the disputed nuclear program as state media first reported. Initial reports said a pair of gunmen firing from motorcycles killed 35-year-old Darioush Rezaei, a physics professor whose area of expertise was neutron transport. Several news reports, including by the semi-official ISNA news agency, linked him to the country's nuclear program. But an investigation later determined the slain man was Darioush Rezaeinejad, an electronics student at Khajeh Nasir University in Tehran."
"Iran media: Wrong man killed".
"Iran denies assassinated academic worked on nuclear projects" | Saeed Kamali Dehghan | guardian.co.uk| 25 July 2011.
"Photo of the Day". (funeral) | news.yahoo.com.
"US denies killing scientist, presses Iran" (AFP). 25 July 2011.
"Who Is Killing Iran's Nuclear Scientists?" | By MATTHEW COLE and MARK SCHONE | July 26, 2011.
"Iranian scientist's death 'probably the work of western security agencies'". The Guardian. 27 July 2011. Retrieved 2013-04-12.
Porter, Gareth (17 March 2012). "How Mossad Justified Its Murder of an Innocent Iranian Electrical Engineer". Truthout. Retrieved 2013-04-12.
Jahn, George (September 19, 2011). "AP Exclusive: Police investigate Iran nuke expert". The Guardian. Retrieved 2013-04-12.
Ulrike Putz, "Mossad Behind Tehran Assassinations, Says Source", Spiegel Online, August 2, 2011.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Darioush Rezaeinejad.
Iranian Nuclear Physicist Killed in Tehran; Mossad Blamed (International Business Times, 23 July 2011)
(in German) Iran: USA und Israel hinter Tod eines Wissenschaftlers (Reuters, 24 July 2011); with picture
(in French) Un physicien nucléaire iranien tué par balle à Téhéran (AFP, 24 July 2011)
Iran says no suspect of student terror act arrested (ISNA, 26 July 2011)