Three suspects arrested in connection with murder of Iranian activist in 2017

The police have arrested three suspects in connection with the murder of the Iranian activist, Ahmed Mola Nissi, in The Hague in 2017. The suspects are three men aged 37, 29, and 31 from Barendrecht, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. They were questioned and released but remain suspects in the case, the police reported on Friday.

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) suspects one of the three of being involved in planning the murder, one of possessing the firearm used, and one of the theft of the car that was used.

It was reported last week by police that a Bulgarian man was being considered a suspect for possible involvement in the murder. The man, who may have been the shooter, is currently jailed in a foreign country for alleged involvement in another murder. Dutch detectives have spoken to the suspect.

Nissi was one of the founders of the Arabic-Iranian resistance movement, Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, a separatist group that strived for an Arabian state in the southwest of Iran. He was fatally shot near his home on the Jan van Riebeekstraat in The Hague in 2017.

“After questioning, the suspects were released, and the prosecutor decided, based on the current file, not to bring them before the examining magistrate,” the police said. They added that they are not ruling out making more arrests in relation to the case.

Nissi told police on several occasions that he was being threatened and had been placed on an Iranian hit list, but the authorities did nothing with the reports.

The Dutch intelligence service AIVD recently reported that their evidence suggests that Iran was behind two murder attempts in the Netherlands and Spain. The Iranian regime was accused of planning the assassination of an Iranian activist in Haarlem in 2024.