Death plot alleged against U.N. chief

Press, 4 January 1980, Page 1

Death plot alleged against U.N. chief

NZPA-Reuter ' Teheran The Iranian authorities say they have foiled a for-‘eign-inspired plot against the life of the United Nations Secretary-General (Dr Kurt Waldheim), who is in Teheran to try to solve the two-month-old American-Iranian hostage •crisis. . i k ' - • The official Pars news agency on Wednesday night quoted the Iranian Foreign Minister (Mr Sadeq Qotbzadeh) as saying: “A plot was going to be carried out this afternoon against the life of Kurt Waldheim. It was discovered and neutralised.” • In a statement, the Foreign Ministry referred to the cancellation of a visit Dr Waldheim was to have made on Wednesday afternoon to people crippled in the Iranian revolution. ’ “According to information reaching the Foreign Ministry a handful of people subservient to foreigners apparently intended to commit a plot by exploiting the demonstrations of the people,” it said. .

Neither Mr Qotbzadeh

nor the Ministry gave any details of the alleged plot. Dr Waldheim’s visit to - . >

the former . Teheran Officers’ Club, now a centre for invalids of the revolution, was cancelled after a broadcast appeal by an Islamic Students’ Association for a demonstration to prevent the possibility of any negotiation.'

About 1500 people marched on the centre chanting, “Death to Carter, death to the Shah.”

The demonstrators carried poster-sized photographs of Dr Waldheim shaking hands with the ousted Shah-and kissing the hand of the Shah’s twin sister, Ashraf. Some invalids were interviewed on State television on Wednesday evening and gave accounts .of how they had allegedly been crippled during the revolution.

A spokesman for Dr Waldheim said the Iranian Foreign Ministry had not specifically referred to a plot against Dr Waldheim’s life but had cited security as the reason for cancelling the visit. .

Asked whether' extra security precautions were being taken, the spokesman said: “Information about the Secretary-Gen-eral’s schedule has been clamped down on.”

Dr Waldheim had a first meeting with Mr Qotbzadeh on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry described the three-hour meeting as an exchange of views. Dr Waldheim said on his arrival in Teheran on Monday that he aimed to have talks on all aspects of the crisis and would listen to Iranian grievances as well as talking about the situation of the 49 American hostages held captive by Muslim students at the United States Embassy.

Mr Qotbzadeh told Iranian reporters on Wednesday evening that the Waldheim visit would not in itself result in the release of the hostages, whom the students threaten to put on trial on spying charges. In a letter to Dr Waldheim, made public on Wednesday, the Iranian Jurists’ Association set out a prima facie case against the Shah for crimes against humanity and said there was international precedent for his extradition from any country. Meanwhile, in Iran’s western province of Kurdistan, thousands of demonstrators staged an all-night vigil outside, the offices of the Governor-General of the provincial capital of Sanandaj to demand the withdrawal of revolutionary guards from the region. The demonstration cameafter clashes in the city between gunmen and revolutionary guards which left five persons dead and at least eight wounded. In Paris, the Shah’s wife said in an interview published on Wednesday that her husband was suffering from Waldenstroem’s disease, a rare blood malady that .killed the late Algerian President, Mr Houari Boumedienne, a year ago. Farah Diba, in an interview with “Paris Match,” said some doctors believed her husband .should have: his spleen' removed because it had become seriously enlarged from the disease.

But there was no chance that he’’ would return to the United States for such surgery. ; If it became necessary it would be done in Panama, where the Shah how lives.- .