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SEE CORRECTION APPENDED; Shahpour Bakhtiar--An Aug. 8 story about a lawsuit stemming from the assassination of former Iranian Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar incorrectly described a fatwa as a death sentence. Fatwas are religious decrees by senior Islamic clerics. They can be issued to carry out a wide range of actions.
The family of a former Iranian prime minister who was assassinated in 1991 while exiled in France has filed a $165- million damage suit in Los Angeles against the Islamic Republic of Iran, accusing that government of ordering his murder.
The federal court complaint was brought by the widow, son and stepdaughter of Shahpour Bakhtiar, the late Shah's last prime minister before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
All three are U.S. citizens currently living in California. Their lawyer, Michael P. Guta of Oakland, declined Tuesday to reveal their exact whereabouts, citing worries about their safety.
"As you can tell from our complaint, we have legitimate security concerns," Guta said.
The lawsuit accuses the Iranian government and its intelligence service of murdering more than 100 opposition leaders and critics around the...