France’s interior minister will sign an expulsion order on Monday for an Iranian national who is serving a life sentence in France for the 1991 murder of Iran’s last prime minister under the Shah, a government source said.
Ali Vakili Rad was convicted in 1994 of stabbing Shapour Bakhtiar to death in the ex-premier’s Paris flat.
He came due for parole last year and a court is expected to decide on his release on Tuesday. An expulsion order by Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux would open the way for his immediate return to Iran.
The decision to expel him comes the day after a French teaching assistant flew home to Paris after being detained for 10 months in Tehran on spying charges.
France has denied cutting a deal with Iran to secure the release of 24-year-old Clotilde Reiss.
