It acquitted a third defendant, Zeynalabedine Sarhadi, a great-nephew of Iran's President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom prosecutors had said was the link between the Iranian intelligence services and the 1991 murder of Shapour Bakhtiar on French soil.
The court imposed a life sentence on Ali Vakili Rad for Bakhtiar's assassination, while Massoud Hendi was sentenced to 10 years for being an accessory to the murder.
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