Iranian Students Riot Over Assassination Ruling

Hundreds of students threatened to storm the German Embassy on Monday, stoning the compound and battling riot police in the first violence over a German court ruling accusing Iran of assassinating exiled dissidents.

The court’s finding has created the worst diplomatic crisis between Iran and the West since 1989, when revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged Muslims around the world to find and kill British author Salman Rushdie.

Some of the roughly 400 students threw stones at the embassy.

Almost 1,000 riot police stood six deep outside the compound and linked arms - at one point, drawing their shotguns to make it clear to the students that they would not be allowed through.

It was the first violence since a Berlin court convicted four men Thursday in the 1992 murders of four Iranian dissidents in Berlin and said the order to kill came from Iran’s top leaders. Prosecutors earlier implicated Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

For years, Europe has resisted U.S. efforts to sever ties with Iran despite evidence implicating Tehran in political killings. Sixty-three exiled Iranian dissidents have been slain in mysterious circumstances since Iran’s revolution in 1979.

France, Germany and other European countries have chosen to look the other way, reluctant to jeopardize trade with Iran, an oil-rich country of 60 million people.