Two hostages were shot dead by the group and the siege was ended when the British Army's elite Special Air Service (SAS) killed the other terrorists.
He became an Iranian Army soldier aged 18 for two years' national service before employment as a labourer in the city of Khorramshahr's docks.
To avoid becoming part of the Arabs' round-up by the Revolutionary Guards, Nejad went to the Iraqi border and asked the police for asylum.
As he was well-educated and bilingual in Arabic and Persian, he was taken to Basra, given a home and employed by Iraqi intelligence translating Iranian radio broadcasts.
On 5 May at 13:45, Abbas Lavasani, the Embassy's chief press officer, was shot dead by the group's leader, Salim Towfigh (real name Oan Ali Mohammed), and his body was dumped outside.
Under interrogation prior to his court appearance, he said that the plan was hatched with the guidance of the Iraqi authorities and that he was told that British police did not carry weapons (P.C.
It was alleged during the trial by the doorman, Abbas Fellahi, that Nejad had been one of four gunmen who panicked and opened fire on the hostages when the SAS arrived.
Nejad claimed in his testimony that the original plan was to begin shooting hostages if their demands were not met within a day; he said there had been a split amongst the gunmen after the leader, Towfigh, would not relate the conversation he had with the police outside.
[6][10][7] The UK Government stated that as Nejad is a foreign convicted terrorist he is unable to apply for asylum but could not be deported under human-rights law: the Iranian authorities continue to want to try Nejad separately for the murder of the two hostages but were unable to offer acceptable assurances to the British that he would not be tortured or executed upon repatriation (during his trial they had said he should receive "Islamic justice").
On 12 October, Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mehdi Safari, summoned the British ambassador, Geoffrey Adams, to protest at this "condemnable and indefensible" act.
Despite suffering life-threatening injuries, medical clerk Dadgar said he had forgiven him and signed a release petition with other hostages, commenting, "He has been punished.