Deutsche Welle Exposes Iran's "Dakhme" Murder-Plotting Network and Elite Force's Systematic Repression Apparatus

[Berlin] After months of secret correspondence with two high-ranking Iranian defectors, Deutsche Welle's investigative unit disclosed for the first time the internal workings of the Islamic Republic of Iran's elite security force. The investigation revealed that a covert prayer hall named "Dakhme" (Persian for "tomb" or "grave") served as a clandestine command center used by senior Iranian officers to plot murders and kidnappings at home and abroad.

A former special-forces commander using the alias "Omid" told Deutsche Welle that he had attended multiple meetings at a prayer hall in the Shahre-Ray area on the outskirts of Tehran. The prayer hall, formally named "Beit al Shohada" (House of Martyrs), has an unremarkable exterior, sandwiched between an occupational-therapy clinic and a pharmacy. Omid said: "That is where murder decisions were made: it is a killing machine."

Deutsche Welle corroborated a substantial portion of Omid's testimony through documents, photographs, video footage, and interviews with experts. An intermediary also connected the investigative team to a second high-ranking intelligence-department defector using the alias "Reza," whose account corroborated key details provided by Omid. Deutsche Welle withheld certain details to protect the two men and their families.

Round-the-Clock Control

Omid joined Iran's security force at the age of 18, driven by what he described to Deutsche Welle as "a deep sense of duty toward the homeland." He told Deutsche Welle that, within the military academy, cadets were subjected to round-the-clock control by the regime — from military training to daily prayers and political lectures, nothing was left out.

"They shape the minds of young cadets," Omid said.

The isolation serves a clear purpose. Saeed Golkar, a political scientist at the University of Tennessee who has long studied the Islamic Republic's security-force command structure, told Deutsche Welle: "They can more effectively generate peer pressure and conduct ideological indoctrination." Golkar noted that security forces, largely cut off from the general population, are less hesitant to use force against their own civilians.

As a senior officer, Omid enjoyed the privileges the regime frequently grants to its own: from financial incentives and economic contracts to special residential compounds equipped with dedicated mosques, schools, and hospitals. Satellite-television receivers are banned in these compounds, and religious rituals are compulsory.

The price, Omid said, is "control, nothing but control." Officers are closely surveilled: "You can't casually attend weddings or travel. They confiscate your passport; they even decide which school your children can attend." Control extends to the soldiers' spouses — who are first vetted by the regime. Omid said that even so, he was not permitted to share the true nature of his work with his wife, and that "it really eats away at you, little by little."

January 8: Blackout and Massacre

The systematic violence revealed by the investigation reached a new peak on the evening of January 8 this year. That night, against a backdrop of a near-total internet blackout, security forces opened fire on Iranians protesting shortages and soaring inflation. As sporadic footage leaked out of the country, the scale of the massacre gradually became known to the outside world.

Deutsche Welle, citing the records of human-rights organizations, noted that thousands of protesters were killed across Iran, and that the killings included the shooting of unarmed protesters in hospital beds.

Raha Bahreini, an Iran researcher at Amnesty International, recently authored an analysis of the regime's chain of command during the protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody in 2022. She told Deutsche Welle: "The military-grade firearms issued to the security forces were designed for combat situations and were used against protesters, which indicates that the killing of the regime's own protesters was intentional."

Both defectors said they were shocked by the mass killings, and that shock ultimately drove them to speak to Deutsche Welle. Omid insisted that he had never fired on protesters, nor ordered subordinates to do so — but Deutsche Welle was unable to verify this claim; when pressed further, he acknowledged that he had witnessed protesters being killed.

How "Dakhme" Operates

Omid told Deutsche Welle that meetings typically began under the cover of religious rituals, held in a hall commonly decorated with green drapings and religious banners. Once dinner was shared, only members of the inner circle remained.

Those officers, Omid said, handed over their mobile phones, which were collectively locked away. Then, he recounted, "senior specialists" from Iran's special forces and intelligence departments began all-night discussions of murder and kidnapping schemes.

"For these people, a person's rank and position don't matter," Omid said. "If they consider someone a threat to the Supreme Leader, they treat it very seriously and act on it."

Omid insisted that he attended these meetings only under orders from his superiors and never took part in any operation plotted at Dakhme. But he enumerated a series of domestic and foreign murder and kidnapping cases he claimed were plotted at the venue. Deutsche Welle was unable to independently verify these specific cases, but found that some of the individuals named did indeed die under unresolved circumstances.

Among the experts Deutsche Welle contacted, some were aware of a connection between Dakhme and an assassination attempt more than two decades ago on an adviser to a reformist president; others had never heard of the site. No one was able to confirm Dakhme's continued operation, but experts said the existence of such a facility is plausible.

Secrecy Under External Pressure

Deutsche Welle's reporting noted that, despite facing a sustained protest movement, international sanctions, soaring inflation, and recent "Israeli and American strikes that eliminated much of its senior military and political leadership," Iran's security force has continued to operate its repressive machinery.

Miad Maleki, who until recently departed designed Iran-targeted sanctions programs at the U.S. Treasury, told Deutsche Welle: "The Islamic Republic of Iran may now have more reason than ever to have such organizations in place." Maleki pointed out that military operations secretly planned at Dakhme would give the regime "plausible deniability" for killings.

The Iranian Embassy in Berlin responded to Deutsche Welle's investigation by refusing to address individual allegations, stating only that "the Islamic Republic of Iran firmly rejects these accusations and the conclusions drawn from them." The office of the Supreme Leader did not respond.

Reza told Deutsche Welle that the guilt he carried after "wasting 10, 11 years for a brutal system" drove him to step forward at risk to himself and his family. "The truth is: when your opponent is a regime that does not abide by any moral values, you must prepare for anything."