NEW DELHI – The Delhi Police’s Special Cell has identified three Iranians as
those responsible for the February 13 bombing of an Israeli Embassy car in which
Tal Yehoshua Koren, wife of the Israeli defense attaché, was
wounded.
Non-bailable warrants have been secured against Housan Afshar,
Syed Ali Mehdi Sadr and Mohammed Reza Abolghasemi, all Iranian
nationals.
Armed with those warrants, Delhi Police has approached
Interpol to issue “Red Corner” notices – international arrest warrants – against
the suspects.
Afshar is believed to have placed the “sticky bomb” on the
car when it slowed down at a traffic light a short distance from the Israeli
Embassy and the Indian prime minister’s residence on February 13. Sadr and
Abolghasemi are believed to be the co-conspirators who fine-tuned the
attack.
Sources said Sadr and Abolghasemi visited Delhi several times to
prepare the blueprint for the attack. They likely traveled to Delhi along with
Syed Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi, the Indian journalist arrested last Thursday for his
role as a facilitator.
The conspiracy was hatched in early
2011.
Kazmi, the police claim to have established, visited Iran “seven to
eight times” last year. He is believed to have helped Sadr and Abolghasemi study
the movement of embassy vehicles and diplomats.
They used the information
to work out the final details of the bombing which was carried out by
Afshar.
The Iranians are believed to have traveled to India on tourist
visas. They arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi
separately.
They stayed at nondescript low-budget hotels in an area
crawling with backpackers from around the world, which would have helped them
avoid attracting attention or raising suspicion.
The motorcycle used by
Afshar, sources said, belonged to an employee of the hotel in which he was
staying. The employee was unaware of either Afshar’s antecedents or his
intentions and mistook him for a tourist.
Sadr and Abolghasemi took
flights out of Indira Gandhi International Airport for “destinations in Middle
East.” Afshar, according to the sources, took a flight to Kuala Lumpur from
where he boarded a connecting flight to Tehran within hours of the
bombing.
A source said Afshar arrived in Delhi in January. He spent the
next few weeks acquainting himself with the area around the Israeli Embassy,
tracking diplomats and their movements, and working out the getaway. He was in
constant contact with Kazmi and a visitor to his home.
A scooter found at
Kazmi’s home was used to conduct reconnaissance and to ferry the Iranians around
Delhi.
Investigators, while scanning Kazmi’s finances and financial
transactions, are believed to have found a sizable remittance in his wife’s bank
account. They are believed to have tracked the source of the money to Iran.
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