Iranian Kurdish Lawyer Wounded in Assassination Attempt in Iraq

An Iranian lawyer living in Iraq’s semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan sustained serious wounds on November 16 when unidentified assailants tried to assassinate him, reports say.

After the attack, Sohrab Rahmati, a Kurdish political activist and member of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Bar Association, was hospitalized in Erbil, the region’s capital.

Rahmati has recently disclosed he had received threats from the Iranian security institutions.

The lawyer had taken on the murder case of Behrouz Rahimi, a member of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) who was assassinated in 2021 in Sulaymaniyah, in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. 

Last week, a court in the Iraqi city sentenced the primary suspect in the case to life imprisonment.

Reports said the suspect admitted to assassinating Rahimi on behalf of the security agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in exchange for money.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have launched multiple artillery and missile attacks on the positions of PJAK and other Kurdish parties over the past year, accusing them of trying to destabilize the Islamic Republic.