Berlin - An Iranian man convicted of shooting to death four opponents of Tehran in a Berlin restaurant 15 years ago was prematurely released from prison on Monday, German officials said. Kazem Darabi was placed in a prison transport vehicle and driven from the German capital to Frankfurt where he was due to be put on a plane for Tehran in the evening, a spokesman for Berlin's internal affairs department said.
The fate of a Lebanese national, Abbas Rhayel, who along with Darabi was sentenced in 1997 to life imprisonment for the four murders, remained unclear.
Federal prosecutors in the southern city of Karlsruhe announced the two months ago that the men would be paroled and later said this would happen by December 24.
The court that convicted them said they were leaders of a gang setup by the Iranian Islamist authorities to kill the leaders of the opposition Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran while they were dining at a Greek restaurant called Mykonos in September 1992.
It found the assassinations were ordered by a "commission for special affairs" comprising top figures of the Iranian regime. The other two members of the murder gang to be convicted in Germany were deported in 1999 to Lebanon.
Over the years it had repeatedly been suggested that Berlin might swap them with Iran to obtain the release of Germans, but the federal government always insisted their punishment was not negotiable.
Israel appealed to Berlin in October to keep holding Darabi until Iran or its Lebanese associate Hezbollah explains what became of captured Israeli airman Ron Arad after his jet crashed and he was captured in Lebanon in 1986.
Arad's relations vainly tried in October to persuade the German prosecutors to change their minds about an early release.
Germany commonly paroles life prisoners after a total 15 years in pre-trial and penitential custody.
