Saeed Karimian (8 August 1972[1] – 29 April 2017) was an Iranian television executive, the founder, chairman, and owner of Dubai-based [2] GEM TV, which runs 17 Persian-language TV channels, plus one each in Kurdish, Azeri, and Arabic.
[3][4] Karimian, who was British national,[5] had been tried in absentia by a court in Tehran, and sentenced to a prison term of six years for spreading propaganda against Iran.
[4] Karimian was shot dead in Istanbul, Turkey, on 29 April 2017, along with his Kuwaiti business partner.
[3][4][5] According to the exiled Iranian opposition group National Council of Resistance, Karimian was assassinated by the Revolutionary Guard on the orders of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader.
[6] In May 2017, Turkish media reported that two people accused for the assassination of Karimian were arrested in Serbia with fake passports on their way to Iran.