The French Interior ministry signed an expulsion order for the killer of a former Iranian prime minister on Monday. Ali Vakili Rad received a life sentence in 1994 for murdering the last prime minister under the Shah of Iran, Chapour Bakhtiar, at his home outside Paris in 1991. A Paris court is to rule on Tuesday [AP report] whether to grant conditional release to Vakili Rad, who completed the irreducible part of his sentence, 18 years of imprisonment, in June 2009. He then demanded to be released on parole and sent back to Iran, but the court stayed its decision pending the signature of an expulsion order.

The timing of the ministry’s decision has given rise to suspicion, since it closely followed the release of a young French academic [Washington Post report], Clothilde Reiss, detained by the Iranian authorities for over ten months on charges of spying. Following protracted negotiations between the French and the Iranian governments, her 10-year jail term was commuted to a fine of 3 billion rials ($300,000) over the week-end. Both Vakili Rad’s lawyer and the French government have rejected allegations that a bargain took place.