VIENNA, July 5: Austrian prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether Iran’s president-elect was involved in the 1989 assassination of a Kurdish leader in Vienna, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

A ministry spokesman confirmed that prosecutors had started a probe by asking the ministry’s anti-terrorism task force to investigate the case, but declined to provide any details.

“The prosecutor’s office has made the request,” ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia said.

The state prosecutor’s office also confirmed that it was reopening the unsolved murder case.

Tehran reacted angrily, saying the Foreign Ministry summoned the Austrian ambassador to demand an explanation.

Austrian Green Party security spokesman Peter Pilz told a news conference there was “credible evidence” that Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was involved in the 1989 assassination of Iranian exile Kurdish opposition leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou and two other Kurdish politicians in Vienna.

“Yesterday the state prosecutor’s office asked the Anti-Terrorism Task Force to begin an investigation into the allegations about the 1989 triple murder,” Pilz told reporters.

In addition to Mr Ahmadinejad, who was a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards at the time of the killings, Pilz said former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was at the centre of the newly reopened investigation.—Reuters