By JPOST.COM STAFF
03/15/2012 08:51
THE JERUSALEM POST
New Delhi police name 3 Iranian nationals who plotted attack on car of Tal Yehoshua Koren and say trio escaped to a Middle Eastern country.
By Stringer India / ReutersPolice in New Delhi and Indian intelligence agencies announced that they have identified three Iranians responsible for plotting and carrying out the attack on an Israeli diplomat's car in the Indian capital, The Times of Indiareported Thursday.
Indian police identified the three men as Houshang Afshar Irani, Seyed Ali Mahdiansadr and Mohammad Reza Abolghasemi, and said that all three hold Iranian passports, and traveled to New Delhi 15 days before the bombing on tourist visas, according to the report.
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After the attack, which injured a diplomat's wife and her driver, the three escaped India for a Middle Eastern nation. Indian police have not confirmed whom the men were working for, though an unnamed source told the Times the trio was connected to an Iranian spy agency.
Police are likely to go public with the details of the case on Thursday or Friday, according to the report.
The source explained to the Times that the Iranian suspect Irani had arrived in February 2011, a year before the attack, to plan the bombing along with Indian journalist Syed Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi who was arrested earlier this month. Indian police say they have conclusive evidence connecting Kamzi - an Indian national who was working for Iran's official IRNA news agency - to the Iranians conspiring to attack the Israeli embassy.
While Kamzi was integral in the trio's reconnaissance operations, it was Irani that rented a motorcycle and followed the car of Tal Yehoshua Koren, tacked the magnetic bomb on the vehicle, and sped off while the car exploded behind him, the source said.
Iran has denied complicity in the attack, and has even implicated Israel in bombing its own diplomatic personnel.