Sharafkandi (alias Dr. Said) was born in Taragha, a village in the Bokan region of eastern Kurdistan, on January 11, 1938. He received his primary education in Kurdistan and attended university in Tehran, where he earned a degree in chemistry.
Sharafkandi received a scholarship for postgraduate studies at the University of Paris VI, France, where he completed his PhD in analytical chemistry in 1976.
In Paris, Sharafkandi and the Kurdish leader Dr. Ghassemlou became friends. While pursuing his PhD studies in Paris, Sharafkandi decided to join the PDKI.
Following the revolution of 1979, Dr. Sharafkandi rose through the ranks of PDKI. Before the post-revolutionary Islamist regime in Iran banned PDKI, Dr. Sharafkandi was the party’s representative in Tehran.
Following the breakout of war and PDKI’s decision to wage armed resistance to defend the Kurdish people against Iranian aggression, Dr. Sharafkandi was given new tasks. He became in charge of the party’s media department.
Dr. Sharafkandi was also an esteemed lecturer in the military academy of the party during the 1980s. During those years when PDKI was embroiled in a war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sharafkandi, notwithstanding his heavy commitments, managed to write an important book on the history of Kurdish liberation movements in the different parts of Kurdistan.
Eventually, Dr. Sharafkandi became the deputy secretary general of PDKI and was elected to lead the party following the assassination of Dr. Ghassemlou in 1989.
Dr. Sharafkandi enjoyed the support and admiration of the Peshmerga Forces of Kurdistan. He was a firm and esteemed leader.
Dr. Sharafkandi was married and the father of three children.
Aside from Kurdish, Dr. Sharafkandi spoke Persian, Arabic, Turkish and French. He enjoyed Kurdish poetry and was well-versed in European culture.[1]
Death
Mykonos assassination attempt, in the Père Lachaise Cemetery (Paris).
Sharafkandi was murdered in the Mykonos restaurant assassinations. On 17 September 1992, Iranian-Kurdish insurgent leaders Sadegh Sharafkandi, Fattah Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their translator Nouri Dehkordi were assassinated at the Mykonos Greek restaurant in Berlin, Germany In the Mykonos trial, the courts found Kazem Darabi, an Iranian national who worked as a grocer in Berlin, and Lebanese Abbas Rhayel, guilty of murder and sentenced them to life in prison. Two other Lebanese, Youssef Amin and Mohamed Atris, were convicted of being accessories to murder. In its 10 April 1997 ruling, the court issued an international arrest warrant for Iranian intelligence minister Hojjat al-Islam Ali Fallahian after declaring that the assassination had been ordered by him with knowledge of supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Ayatollah Rafsanjani.
In a 2004 letter to Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (the mayor of Tehran at that time) objected to the commemorative plaque in front of the restaurant, calling it an insult to Iran.[2]