Ahmad Tafazzoli

Ahmad Tafazzoli was a prominent scholar of ancient Iranian literature and a professor at Tehran University. On 15 January 1997 he was found dead in a suburb of Tehran — his skull and bones had been crushed, and his body was stuffed into the trunk of his car. His murder was later attributed to the same Ministry of Intelligence unit responsible for the broader chain murders campaign. Tafazzoli's killing was one of the most brutal of the earlier (pre-1998) chain murders, which only came to light after the high-profile assassinations of late 1998.