On Friday afternoon October 15th the phone rang. I looked at the number. It was a very familiar one. It was Sir David Amess’ assistant. But the tone was very different this time. In a matter of a few seconds, a sudden grief overwhelmed me.

I lost a friend of 35 years when Sir David Amess was fatally stabbed at a meeting with his constituents.

On the surface, we did not have very much in common. Sir David was a highly respected member of the UK Parliament. I spent my early life in Iran before coming to Britain and continuing my activist work as part of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

But in reality, we had a lot in common.

As my work for human rights and democracy in Iran intensified, I got to know Sir David as a caring member of the House of Commons. The passage of time revealed the depth of his commitment to the causes of freedom and democracy throughout the world, in any place where people are routinely denied these things. Our interactions also revealed Sir David’s personal warmth and kindness – qualities that have already been highlighted in countless memorials to the slain lawmaker. I like to think that despite our inherent differences, we were very similar at heart.

He certainly was a “seasoned campaigner of verve and grit” who demanded “freedom for the people of Iran,” as Prime Minister Boris Johnson underscored on Monday in the Parliament. In reality, as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran put it, for the last three decades, Sir David fought a courageous battle with all his political and parliamentary credibility in defense of the Iranian people’s trampled rights and in support of the main Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

But as ironic as it is, we had something else in common. We were both victims of terrorism.

The latest reports indicate that Sir David’s killing is being investigated as a possible act of terrorism. We have to wait for the result of the police investigation to be announced on his murder.

On my case, in March 1990, I was attacked by two gunmen in Istanbul during a spate of assassinations and attempted assassinations ordered by the Iranian regime. I suffered gunshot wounds to my chest and stomach and very narrowly survived. At one point, my chances of making it through surgery were estimated at only 1%, and in total, I underwent 14 surgeries and received 154 pints of blood. As I recall the thin margin of my survival, I cannot help but wonder whether Sir David might also have survived if circumstances had been just a tiny bit different.

One of the last issues I pursued with Sir David was to hold the Iranian regime’s leaders to account for the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in Iran in 1988. The new President of the Iranian regime, Ebrahim Raisi, as the Deputy Prosecutor of Tehran, was one of the masterminds who personally sent thousands of MEK political prisoners to the gallows in kangaroo-court trials that lasted one to two minutes. One of Raisi’s facilitators in the 1988 massacre, Hamid Noury, is currently standing trial in Sweden for his role in the 1988 massacre.

In a commentary published just one day before his murder, Sir David described the 1988 massacre as “attempted genocide against moderate Muslims who challenged the regime’s fundamentalist theocracy more than 33 years ago.” He vehemently called for ending the impunity that the Iranian regime’s leaders, including its supreme leader Ali Khamenei and Raisi, have enjoyed for too long. He urged the international community to “reverse its pattern of appeasement” in dealing with the ruling theocracy in Iran and adopt a firm policy by standing on the side of the Iranian people and their legitimate aspirations.

Sir David is no longer among us. The people of Iran have lost an exceptional friend. The British people and the world have lost a great advocate for freedom and human rights.

His brutal murder is a wake-up call to all of us and the world about the dangers of fundamentalism, extremism, and most notably terrorism.

And I will pay the ultimate tribute to my friend of 35 years, worthy of all his efforts and endeavors, in Tehran on the day when Iran is freed. I am sure he will be with us with his constant smile and joy.

Hossein Abedini is deputy director of NCRI's London office and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran