LIES & SPIES

How the Iranian Regime Has Tried to

Demonize the Main Democratic Opposition Movement

April 2018

By Struan Stevenson
2
Table of contents:

INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 4
The uprising in Iran intensifies the anger of the mullahs against the
opposition

CHAPTER ONE .............................................................................................. 6

How Iranian Agents breach security in the West

CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................ 8

A background on Iran’s democratic opposition, PMOI

CHAPTER THREE ........................................................................................ 11

The UK, EU & US courts rule that the PMOI is not and was never a
terrorist organisation contrary to MOIS lies

CHAPTER FOUR .......................................................................................... 13

Deadly attacks on Camps Ashraf and Liberty & the transfer of the
residents to Albania

CHAPTER FIVE ............................................................................................. 15

Expansion of Islamic Fundamentalism to the Balkans and Albania by the
Iranian regime

CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................... 18

Network of Iran’s agents in Europe

CHAPTER SEVEN ........................................................................................ 20

Iranian Regime’s lobbying methods

CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 21

3
INTRODUCTION

The uprising in Iran intensifies the anger of the mullahs against the opposition

The social protests that began twelve months earlier swept across Iran in a nationwide uprising in
December 2017. In a short period, over 140 Iranian cities became the scene of confrontation between
protesters and government forces. According to regime officials, the offices of the 60 Friday prayer Imams,
representatives of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the axis of suppression and looting in
each region, were burned by the people. Many of the Basij militia and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps
(IRGC) centres were invaded by students and mainly young protesters.

Regime officials quickly acknowledged that the main opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran
(PMOI or MEK) had played a key role in launching the nationwide protests and anti-government
demonstrations. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), on 2 January 2018, President Hassan Rouhani
called President Macron and asked him to take action against the Paris-based Iranian opposition, which he
accused of fomenting the recent protests. President Macron rejected his demand.

On 9 January 2018, Ayatollah Khamenei, said the PMOI had organized the uprising, and implicitly
threatened to execute the protesters.

Brutal suppression in response to the uprising

The regime has been able temporarily to halt these uprisings only with repression and mass arrests,
although smaller protests have continued. The recent uprisings throughout Iran show that the people are
sick to death with the theocratic dictatorship. They long for freedom, justice, democracy and the rule of
law, but the IRGC and its cohorts have met their protests with the usual brutal crackdown. More than 8,000
mostly young protesters, many of them women, have been arrested. At least fourteen have been tortured
to death.

On 8 February, regime officials announced that Dr Kavous Seyyed Emami, a prominent environmentalist,
had committed suicide in prison. He was arrested 15 days earlier on 24 January 2018 on absurd charges.
Meanwhile, coinciding with the visit of a European Parliamentary delegation to Iran in February, arbitrary
and summary executions have resumed. On 14 February, 10 prisoners were callously hanged in
Gohardasht Prison in Karaj.

Conspiracy in Albania, the flipside of internal suppression

The flipside of the suppressive measures of the Iranian regime inside the country is the increasing plots
against members of the PMOI in Albania. The organized and safe transfer out of Iraq of the last of these
refugees in 2016, many of whom were provided with sanctuary in Albania, provoked rage and frustration
in Tehran, which saw its original plans to annihilate the PMOI foiled.

The formerly tiny Iranian embassy in Albania has now been transformed into one of the regime's largest
embassies in the region. In early 2016, as the PMOI members were being transferred to Albania in groups,
Tehran quickly sent a new ambassador, Gholam Hossein Mohammadnia, to Albania. Mohammadnia is a
former high-ranking intelligence official and was also a member of the Iranian nuclear negotiations team
before accepting his latest appointment in Albania. His main mandate in Tirana is to continue to implement
the regime's malign plots against the PMOI.

Recently, another senior intelligence official, Mostafa Roodaki, has joined him as First Secretary. The
cultural attaché of the embassy, Ahmad Hosseini Alast, is a senior official at the Organization for Islamic
Culture and Communication, a major body responsible for the export of terrorism and fundamentalism. It

4
has become quite clear that the main mission of the embassy and all its personnel is to conspire against
the PMOI.

As part of this policy the Iranian regime has set up official or unofficial intelligence and surveillance
stations in the Balkans. In addition, the regime is trying to expand its influence in that country by
dispatching an unprecedented number of delegations under the guise of cultural or religious activities.

In this report we will look into the activities of Iranian intelligence services aimed at damaging and
demonizing the democratic opposition movement with focus on Albania.

STRUAN STEVENSON
Coordinator
Campaign for Iran Change (CIC)

5
CHAPTER ONE

How Iranian Agents breach security in the West

It was Tuesday 5th December 2017. The European Parliament in Brussels was bustling with activity. This
was ‘Group Week’ when all of the political groups meet in Brussels to prepare their voting lists for the last
plenary session of the year, due to take place the following week in Strasbourg from 11-14 December. On
the third floor, in what is referred to by MEPs and staff as ‘The Airport Coffee Bar’, Anne Singleton was
deep in conversation with a parliamentary staff.

It was perhaps not surprising that Anne Singleton was in Brussels. The Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup
(FoFI), under the chairmanship of senior Belgian MEP Gérard Deprez, had organised a conference to take
place in the parliament on Wednesday 6th December, to mark international Human Rights Day. The
keynote speaker was to be the Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). As head of the biggest, best-organised, opposition to the Tehran
regime, Mrs Rajavi is of course, detested by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his cohorts.
For decades they have used their considerable resources to demonize and attempt to annihilate the NCRI
and PMOI at home and abroad, deploying Ministry of Intelligence Security (MOIS) agents.

The US Pentagon commissioned-report formally exposed Anne Singleton as an Iranian spy in an official
report published in December 2012. The report entitled: ‘Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: a
profile’ 1 was based on exhaustive research undertaken by the Pentagon and the US Federal Research
Division, Library of Congress. It made striking revelations about the extent of activities by the Iranian
Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) against dissidents and in particular efforts to discredit the
main opposition People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI or MEK 2).

The report identified two MOIS agents operating with Iran and explained how they had been recruited and
trained by the MOIS in Tehran to run a demonization campaign including launching a PMOI-defamatory
website: www.iran-interlink.org. The Pentagon report stated:

“The recruitment of a British subject, Anne Singleton, and her Iranian husband, Massoud Khodabandeh,
provides a relevant example of how MOIS coerces non-Iranians to cooperate. She worked with the MEK in the
late 1980s. Massoud Khodabandeh and his brother Ibrahim were both members of the MEK at the time. In
1996 Massoud Khodabandeh decided to leave the organisation. Later, he married Anne Singleton. Soon after
their marriage, MOIS forced them to cooperate by threatening to confiscate Khodabandeh’s mother’s
extensive property in Tehran. Singleton and Khodabandeh then agreed to work for MOIS and spy on the MEK.
In 2002 Singleton met in Tehran with MOIS agents who were interested in her background. She agreed to
cooperate with the MOIS to save her brother-in-law’s life—he was still a member of the MEK at the time.
During her stay in Tehran, she received training from the MOIS. After her return to England, she launched the
iran-interlink.org website in the winter of 2002. After she made many trips to Iran and Singapore—the
country where the agency contacts its foreign agents— the MEK became doubtful of Singleton and
Khodabandeh’s loyalty to the organisation. In 2004 Singleton finally met her brother-in-law, Ibrahim, who
was sent from Syria to Iran after the Syrians arrested him (it appears that Syrians closely cooperate with the
MOIS). Eventually, the MOIS forced him to cooperate as well.”

The report proved immediately that the PMOI/MEK remained the most serious threat to the Iranian
regime and therefore their suppression has always been a priority for the Iran’s intelligence services. The
report also underlined that the Iranian regime was the source of all disinformation against the PMOI.
Indeed by actually naming Anne Singleton and her Iranian husband, Massoud Khodabandeh as trained
MOIS agents, it reinforced the findings of the British courts years earlier when they demanded the de-
listing of the PMOI, showing that their black-listing had been based on supposedly classified evidence

1
https://fas.org/irp/world/iran/mois-loc.pdf
2
Mojahedin-e Khalq
6
supplied by these, which the British judges described as ‘perverse’. Sadly, it was this self-same classified
evidence which had been passed to the US State Department by the UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and
which had been used to justify the continued black-listing of the PMOI in America.

Alarmingly, the Pentagon report also showed that Iran’s known agents had enjoyed freedom of activity in
Europe for years. The report made it clear that the Quds Force and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), together with the MOIS who control their activities, were involved in conspiracies to murder
citizens and residents of the EU. Similar reports have been made by some European Intelligence Services.
The latest annual report of The German Interior Ministry’s Federal Office for the Protection of the
Constitution (BfV), published in July 2017 3 stated:

“The main task of the Iranian intelligence services remains the spying-on and combating of opposition
movements at home and abroad. In addition, the Iranian services in the Western world collect information
in the fields of politics, business and science. The main entity that conducts activities against Germany is the
Ministry of Intelligence (VAJA, mostly abbreviated as MOIS). The main focus of MOIS is in particular on the
"People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran" (PMOI or MEK) and its political arm, the "National Council of
Resistance of Iran" (NCRI).

And the Intelligence Services of the Netherlands, AIVD, 2012 report 4, page 37, states: “AIVD has realized
that the government of Iran is constantly active against the resistance movement PMOI. The Iranian Ministry
of Intelligence (MOIS) controls a network in Europe, which is also active in the Netherlands. Members of this
network are former members of the PMOI who have been recruited by the MOIS. Their mission is to impose a
negative impact on public opinion about the PMOI by lobbying, making publications and organizing anti-
PMOI rallies. These people also gather information about the PMOI and its members for the MOIS.”

3
https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/embed/vsbericht-2016.pdf
4
https://www.aivd.nl/binaries/aivd_nl/documenten/jaarverslagen/2013/04/23/jaarverslag-aivd-2012/jaarverslag-aivd-2012.pdf
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CHAPTER TWO

A background on Iran’s democratic opposition, PMOI

The overthrow of Dr Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 5 (Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister)
caused political unrest throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. Together with oppression and the eventual
banning of all political opposition groups by the Shah, this created disillusionment and disenchantment
amongst Iran’s then 25 million population. Against this backdrop, in the autumn of 1965, three university
students, Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saied Mohsen and Ali-Asghar Badizadegan, set up the People’s
Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) 6, a political organisation originally formed to oppose the corrupt
and oppressive dictatorship of Shah Pahlavi and the absolute rule of the monarch. The PMOI would grow
to become by far the largest and most active political movement in Iranian history.

In the 1970’s however, a brutal crackdown on the organisation and its members by the Shah’s notorious
secret service (Savak) resulted in the execution of the PMOI’s original founders and the imprisonment of
the vast majority of its followers and central committee members, including Massoud Rajavi. Massoud was
a graduate of political law from Tehran University and had joined the PMOI when he was 20. He was only
spared execution because of the efforts of his elder brother Professor Kazem Rajavi 7, a renowned human
rights advocate who spearheaded an international campaign in the West which included securing the
support of Francois Mitterrand, the then leader of the French Socialist Party, the President of Swiss
Confederations, the UN Secretary General and a number of other international dignitaries and human
rights organisations, including Amnesty International and the Red Cross.

While Massoud Rajavi and the rest of the PMOI’s leading cadres were in prison, the organisation suffered
an internal setback. In the years 1972-1975, a number of individuals including a member who had escaped
prison and gained some notoriety among the opposition, took advantage of the absence of the PMOI’s
leadership and attempted to change the organisation’s ideology and direction. The remaining members
outside prison, who strongly rejected the betrayal of the PMOI’s founders and their vision for a future Iran,
vigorously opposed this Marxist coup within the organisation. By suppressing the opposing members and
murdering several of them, this Marxist faction engaged in several armed attacks against American
personnel and their interests stationed in Iran.

According to international experts who have closely examined the events of the 1970’s, these armed
activities were aimed at gaining the upper hand and silencing any opposition to the change in ideology and
strategy of the organisation. Massoud Rajavi although in prison, strongly condemned these individuals and
their actions and he went on to play a vital role in returning the organisation to its true and original
founding principles and ideology. 8 Once released from prison in 1979, Massoud Rajavi and other senior
PMOI members set about restructuring the organisation. Because of the group’s nationalist outlook,
democratic values and modern and progressive view of Islam, they were the natural front-runners in the
1979 revolution. It was because of this tolerant and progressive interpretation of Islam, that the PMOI
provided ideological inspiration to the millions of Iranians whose nationwide protests ultimately brought
down the Shah of Iran in 1979. 9

5 Dr Mossadegh, after the 2nd World War led the movement to nationalise Iranian oil industry. In 1951 Shah was forced to
accept him as the Prime Minister after his election in the Majlis. Mossadegh wanted to limit Shah’s powers according to
the Constitution and not to interfere into every executive affair of the country. In 1952 he was overthrown in a coup d'état
orchestrated by Britain and the United States. Iran became an absolute dictatorship under the Shah for several decades.
6 The organisation is also referred to by its Farsi name Mujahedin-E Khalq (MEK), MKO and other variations of its name.
7
Dr Rajavi, Iran’s first Ambassador to the United Nations after the 1979 revolution, was assassinated in Geneva by agents
of the Iranian regime in 1990.
8 For more information see ‘The Mujahedin-E Khalq, MEK, Shackled by a Twisted History’, by Lincoln P Bloomfield, Jr,

published by University of Baltimore, 2013.

9 ‘People’s Mojahedin of Iran – Mission Report’ Friends of a Free Iran, 2005, pg. 7

8
The PMOI wanted a secular government, elections and universal suffrage to be the basis of political
legitimacy. Their interpretation of Islam and what they aspired to for a future Iran was however in stark
contrast to the intentions of Ayatollah Khomeini, a Shi’ia cleric who had recently returned to Iran from
exile. The Shah had imposed Khomeini’s exile in 1964 due to his increasing religious status and his
denouncing of the Shah’s rule and the influence of the United States and Britain in Iran.

After widespread demonstrations against his rule in 1979, the Shah fled, never to return. Khomeini took
advantage of the vacuum created by the Shah’s lengthy dictatorship and the elimination of all democratic
opposition groups such as the PMOI, whose leaders were either executed or imprisoned and seized the
leadership of the revolution. A lack of democratic institutions and a lack of public knowledge about the
true nature of Khomeini, contributed to his position going unchallenged at the time. He was seen as a
spiritual leader who had no interest in material life or in engaging in the day-to-day affairs of the country.
Indeed, that was the promise he made.

However, having secured the support of the people by taking advantage of their religious sentiment, he
reneged on those promises and instead of setting up a parliament representing the people to write the new
Constitution, he set up an ‘Assembly of Experts’, which was essentially made up of clerics. This assembly
introduced a constitution based on the ‘Velayat-e-faqih’ (the absolute rule of the clergy). He gave himself
the title of the ‘Supreme Leader’ and established the ‘Guardian Council’, which holds absolute power and
controls everything including all legislative acts to ensure they are in accordance to their strict
interpretation of the Quran. Khomeini appointed himself God’s representative on earth, changing Iranian
society overnight and giving birth to what is now known as Islamic fundamentalism.

The PMOI fiercely opposed this undemocratic constitution and refused to take part in the referendum on
the Velayat-e-faqih constitution. Infuriated by the PMOI’s stance against him, Ayatollah Khomeini ordered
a brutal and bloody crackdown on members, supporters and sympathisers of the PMOI in what has been
described as the “reign of terror” 10. According to a decree by Khomeini, “the Mojahedin of Iran are infidels
and worse than blasphemers… They have no right to life.” 11 Since then, the PMOI have been the principal
victims of human rights violations and systematic annihilation in Iran and they are a key target for
demonization and assassination abroad.

Over the past three decades, more than 100,000 of its members and supporters have been executed.
Dozens more have been assassinated outside of Iran. The execution, imprisonment and torture of PMOI
members, supporters and their families continues unabated to this day. In the summer of 1988 the
summary execution of more than 30,000 political prisoners in Iran took place, in an atrocity that surely
must rank as one of the most horrific crimes against humanity of the late twentieth century. The vast
majority of the victims were activists of the PMOI. The mass executions, in jails across Iran, were carried
out on the basis of a fatwa by the regime’s then-Supreme Leader, the murderous Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini. 12

A ‘Death Committee’ approved all the death sentences. Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a key member of that
‘Death Committee’ in Tehran and deputy chair of the Intelligence Ministry at the time, was until recently
President Hassan Rouhani’s Justice Minister, until the scandal of this atrocity became public during the
campaign for Rouhani’s re-election as president for a second term. Rouhani was forced to replace
Pourmohammadi with Alireza Avaie, another notorious executioner, well-known for hanging dozens of
people, including teenagers, when he was public prosecutor in the city of Dezful in Iran’s Khuzestan
Province. Other members of the Death Committee still hold prominent positions in the Iranian regime.
When Khomeini was questioned by his head of the Judiciary in 1988 about those who had already served
their sentences and been released from prison, or those who had been sentenced to terms of

10
‘People’s Mojahedin of Iran – Mission Report’ Friends of a Free Iran, 2005, pg. 20
11 ‘Enemies of the Ayatollahs’ by Mohammad Mohaddessin, pgs. 55 to 56.
12
https://iran1988.org/khomeini-decrees-execution-of-steadfast-monafeqin-mojahedin-in-prisons/
9
imprisonment, he ordered that they should all be put to death. 13

In this massacre there was no mercy for anyone, including teenagers. Kangaroo courts were set up in
Tehran and in more than 100 cities across Iran and PMOI political prisoners were hauled in front of a
Sharia judge who demanded to know if they supported the Mojahedin. Those who defiantly said yes were
sentenced to immediate execution. These sham trials took on average 2 minutes. It was estimated that
30,000 political prisoners were hanged from cranes in batches of ten, every fifteen minutes from dawn to
dusk between July & December 1988.

The PMOI made a great effort for 3 decades to reveal information obtained from within the regime about
the 1988 massacre. But many untold details and the truth about this horrific genocide was finally revealed
on August 9th 2016, when the son of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, the former Deputy Supreme
Leader of the Islamic Republic and the nominated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini, published a previously
unknown audio-tape in which Montazeri acknowledged that the massacre had taken place and had been
ordered at the highest levels.

In the electrifying tape, Montazeri could be heard telling a meeting of the ‘Death Committee’ in 1988 that
they were responsible for a crime against humanity. He said: “The greatest crime committed during the
reign of the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us, has been committed by you. Your names will
in the future be etched in the annals of history as criminals.” Because of his forthright protests, the Grand
Ayatollah was dismissed as the heir to the Supreme Leader by Khomeini and placed under house arrest
until his death in 2009. For making public the audio tape, Montazeri’s son was charged with bringing the
Islamic Republic into disrepute and sentenced to years of imprisonment, subsequently commuted to house
arrest because of his religious prominence.

This grisly crime was an example of the ruthless way in which the Iranian regime decided to hunt down
and murder anyone who opposed their tyrannical rule, in particular members of the PMOI. Members and
supporters of the PMOI who were not executed or imprisoned in Iran were forced into exile, moving to
Paris and other European and North American cities.

13
https://iran1988.org/letter-of-ahamd-khomeini-to-his-father-and-the-latters-response/
10
CHAPTER THREE

The UK, EU & US courts rule that the PMOI is not and was never a terrorist organisation contrary to
MOIS lies

After the 1979 revolution Iran, the PMOI, despite their political differences with Khomeini, did everything
to avoid confrontation with him and his regime. Instead it sought change through peaceful means. But
when the PMOI had exhausted all possible paths to political participation, after mass executions began on
20 June 1981, as a measure of last resort, the organisation took up arms against the Iranian regime.
Massoud Rajavi has said: “…the Islam that we profess does not condone bloodshed. We have never sought,
nor do we welcome, confrontation and violence. If Khomeini is prepared to hold truly free elections, I will
return to my homeland immediately. The Mojahedin will lay down their arms to participate in such elections.
We do not fear election results, whatever they may be. Before the start of armed struggle, we tried to utilise
all legal means of political activity, but suppression compelled us to take up arms. If Khomeini had allowed
half or even a quarter of freedoms presently enjoyed in France, we would certainly have achieved a democratic
victory.” 14

The PMOI between 1981 and 2003, was clearly an armed resistance movement, fighting tyranny and
oppression in their homeland. Forced into exile, Massoud Rajavi moved to Paris in 1981. He along with the
PMOI leadership continued their opposition to Khomeini and his tyrannical rule from exile, while the
movement’s underground network was operating in Iran. However in 1986 the PMOI relocated to Iraq,
after they came under increasing pressure from the government of Jacques Chirac to leave France.
Attempting to secure the release of French hostages held by agents of the Iranian regime in Lebanon, the
French Government was engaged in negotiations with Iran; a concession demanded by Tehran being the
expulsion of the PMOI from French soil.

The PMOI freedom fighters fled to Iraq and built Camp Ashraf on a barren wasteland. Over the years it
became a thriving, small city, but when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, it was bombed then surrounded by
American forces. Indeed in ‘classified’ documents disclosed later at court hearings in the UK, it was shown
that Iran had demanded the bombing of Camp Ashraf and other PMOI camps in Iraq, during Operation Iraqi
Freedom in 2003. The British Government, in an act of unashamed appeasement, had subsequently
assured Tehran it would oblige and had urged the US military to carry out the bombing. The completely
unjustified repeated aerial bombardment of Camp Ashraf that then took place led to the loss of many
innocent lives.

The Wall street journal of 17th April 2003 reported: “The dismantling of the Iranian opposition force in Iraq
. . . fulfills a private U.S. assurance conveyed to Iranian officials before the start of hostilities that the group
would be targeted by British and American forces if Iran stayed out of the fight, according to U.S. officials . .
.But National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell contended that Tehran
could be persuaded to remain Neutral toward the U.S. invasion next door in Iraq, especially if it knew the MEK
[PMOI] would be attacked and prevented from harassing Iran in the future.”

That message was conveyed by British officials before hostilities began. Foreign Minister Jack Straw informed
his Iranian counterpart Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi in a meeting in London. Britain's Iranian
Ambassador Richard Dalton repeated the message weeks later in a meeting with Hassan Rouhani, the cleric
who heads the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's chief foreign policy making body.

Despite this attack and despite the fact that the PMOI in Ashraf were heavily armed and well trained, the
residents bore no malice against the Americans and they agreed voluntarily to hand over their weapons in
return for guaranteed protection. The American army and intelligence services carried out exhaustive
interviews with every individual in Ashraf. Following 16 months of review and screening of each and every
Ashraf resident, the US Government on 2 July 2004 recognised all of them as “protected persons under the

14 Massoud Rajavi interview with L’Unite, Paris, 1 January 1984.

11
Fourth Geneva Convention” and "Senior American officials said extensive interviews by officials of the
State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had not come up with any basis to bring charges
against any members of the group" (The New York Times, 27 July 2004 15). This meant that not a single
person was engaged in any kind of terrorist or criminal activity and that they posed no threat to the US
military; each person in Ashraf was then issued with a photo-identity card on which the US Government
guaranteed their personal safety.

The extensive interviews and research by the US State Department and the FBI proved that the PMOI has
never been in its history (past or present) a terrorist organisation. The PMOI never sought to achieve its
goals using terror. It never targeted civilians, nor have civilians ever been injured or killed as a result of
PMOI campaigns against the Iranian regime. The unjust, illegal and immoral terrorist designation of the
PMOI came about directly at the request of the Iranian regime and the acquiescence of the West, who
placed lucrative commercial contracts with the oil-rich nation above considerations of justice or human
rights. But, as we have seen, the terrorist designation sparked legal challenges in successive courts of law,
resulting ultimately, after years of struggle, with rulings in the courts in the United Kingdom, the United
States and the European Union, that the PMOI was not a terrorist organisation.

15
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/27/world/reach-war-people-s-mujahedeen-us-sees-no-basis-prosecute-iranian-
opposition.html
12
CHAPTER FOUR

Deadly attacks on Camps Ashraf and Liberty & the transfer of the residents to Albania

There were previously around 3,000 key frontline members of the PMOI living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq.
They were defenceless, unarmed refugees under the fragile security of the occupying US military forces
and were under constant threat of attack or eviction.

Parliamentarians who spoke up in support of the Ashraf refugees were routinely vilified in the media by
Iranian intelligence with spurious press articles, accusing them of being “friends of terrorists”. Obscure
advertisements naming the PMOI as a terrorist organisation appeared in parliamentary magazines and
news journals in an attempt to smear their supporters. These clandestine ads sometimes provided a web-
site address, but any attempt to make contact was always met with a wall of silence. There was never an
answer; the web addresses were bogus; these ads were all placed and funded by Iranian Intelligence
(MOIS). They were afraid of the PMOI. They recognised it is the only threat to their stranglehold on Iran.

The US forces who had been stationed at Ashraf since 2003, finally packed up and left on 1st January 2009,
reneging on their safety guarantees to the residents and abandoning them to their fate.

Frustrated at their inability to wipe out the unarmed and defenceless PMOI refugees in the sprawling
grounds of Camp Ashraf, Tehran now put pressure on its puppet prime minister in Iraq – Nouri al-Maliki,
to eject the Iranians from Ashraf and incarcerate them in a small, prison-like compound where they could
more easily be targeted for extermination. In this endeavour they found a willing and malleable pawn in
the newly appointed UN Special Representative in Iraq, Martin Kobler, a former aide to Joschka Fischer,
the former Green Party German Foreign Minister. Kobler began a detailed programme of deception to fool
the EU into agreeing to the closure of Ashraf and the relocation of its residents to Camp Liberty. His tactics
were so dishonest and so uncharacteristic of normal UN practice that it led to the resignation of Tahar
Boumedra, a senior UN official based in Iraq.

By combining threats of further massacres in Camp Ashraf with trickery and deception, Kobler managed
to persuade the EU that the first 400 Ashraf residents would move to Camp liberty on 17th February 2012.

Martin Kobler and his team, by spreading lies about the PMOI, tried to justify the repressive actions and
the inhuman siege against the camp. He shamelessly claimed that the rights of the residents were violated
not by Iraq but by the PMOI leadership. His sinister objective for the transfer of the refugees to Camp
Liberty and the increasing pressure on the refugees was designed to force them to go to Iran and surrender
to the regime or face certain execution. The Iranian regime’s ambassador in Iraq said in an interview in
January 2012: “Kobler had told us that when PMOI members are transferred to Liberty, 1620 of them will go
back to Iran.” When this did not happen, Kobler and the regime became very angry. Tehran responded by
increasing missile attacks on the camp.

I was closely involved in all these events as I was chair of European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
with Iraq at the time.

After their move to Liberty, the camp was attacked by missiles, resulting in many deaths. Apart from
smaller attacks, the heaviest rocket attack on Liberty was on 29 October 2015, killing 24 and wounding
many. A large part of the camp was destroyed. John Kerry, US Secretary of State condemned the attack.

Behind the scenes, Maryam Rajavi had been negotiating at the highest level with the Albanian Government
in Tirana, through European friends from early 2012, to see if they would accept a significant number of
refugees from Camp Liberty. They had arrived at a breakthrough agreement, with the Albanians willing to
accept all or most of the residents as refugees. Their humanitarian initiative was supported by UNHCR and
the US. Indeed the US Secretary of State – John Kerry- travelled to Tirana in February 2016 for top-level
talks with the Albanian Prime Minister – Edi Rama – who, displaying great humanitarian instincts, agreed
13
to allow all of the 3,000 residents of Liberty to be flown to Tirana. This was a major victory for the PMOI
and a humiliating blow for the Iranian regime, which had sought the complete annihilation of everyone in
Camp Liberty.

The mullahs were enraged and a task force of MOIS agents was soon deployed to Tirana. The Iranian
Embassy in the Albanian capital had always been a small, unimportant outpost with a junior diplomat and
few staff. Suddenly Albanian culture became of key significance to the regime, when they appointed more
than a dozen cultural attaches to the embassy in Tirana!

Next, the Iranian regime's official news agency, IRNA, as well as Habilian, a website associated with Iran's
ministry of intelligence (MOIS), published a report of a meeting between Gezim Podgorica, Director
General of the Albanian Telegraphic Agency (ATA) who was in Iran and a known agent of MOIS by the name
of Hasheminejad. It was apparent that Mr Podgorica had agreed to propagate misinformation against the
PMOI in Albania as demanded by MOIS agents, including Hasheminejad, who met him pretending to be
victims of PMOI/MEK terrorism. The same Hasheminejad was later dispatched to speak for visiting
members of the European Parliament to Tehran in February 2018 and held a private meeting with the pro-
Iran MEP Ana Gomes who according to the Habilian website accepted to closely collaborate with them.

According to IRNA on 26 February 2017, these agents attributed a series of false allegations to the PMOI,
such as killing innocent people and causing indiscriminate explosions and the ATA Director General
reciprocally has answered that he is in the frontline of fighting terrorism and "informing about the victims
of terrorism is the frontline of the media in combating terrorism."

These blatantly false allegations were a sure sign that the MOIS was once again using its limitless resources
to demonise the PMOI refugees in Albania. Of even more sinister significance was the sudden arrival of
Anne Singleton in Albania. She visited Tirana several times in November 2017 alone. Years of experience
have shown that such acts of demonization and the spreading of deliberate misinformation against the
PMOI are almost always a prelude to attacks and assassination. Anne Singleton was seen and photographed
outside Camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq, prior to deadly attacks that took place in both camps.

14
CHAPTER FIVE

Expansion of Islamic Fundamentalism to the Balkans and Albania by the Iranian regime

The challenge facing today’s democratic societies is the confrontation between their freedoms and
independence and the many threats posed by Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. In the past three
decades the West has continuously witnessed |Iran intervening in the domestic affairs of Islamic countries
to create major sectarian rifts amongst various religions by provoking ethnic and racial conflicts.

Iran resourcefully knows how to assert its influence in neighbouring countries in the Middle East and
further afield by surreptitiously gaining control over key government assets and state capacities until its
presence becomes indispensable. In southern Lebanon and Iraq, under the pretext of supporting the
region’s deprived communities and spreading the word about Islam, Tehran launched various campaigns
to build schools, mosques and clinics. They hold Quran classes and publish cultural books aimed at
propagating fundamentalist ideals. Through such measures the Iranian theocracy has been able to deceive
the less well-educated portion of those societies, resulting in the formation of terrorist and sectarian
groups and militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries, carrying out horrendous crimes
against innocent Sunnis, Christians and other minorities.

In addition to the Middle East, Iran has in recent years expanded its efforts in the Balkans, focusing mainly
on Albania, establishing cultural institutions to spread its fundamentalist ideology and undermine the
presence of the PMOI in Tirana. Tehran’s efforts in Albania include establishing the Sa’adi College to spread
its fundamentalist culture. This institution is supervised by the cultural office of the Iranian embassy in
Tirana, directed by a mullah by the name of Ahadollah Gholizadeh. Two organizations run directly by the
Iranian regime, the Islamic Culture and Communications Organization and the al-Mustafa Society, which
both fall under the control of the office of the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, run the propaganda
campaign in Albania, using assets channelled to Albania under the guise of diplomatic activities.

Abdul-Ali Asgari, head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) and Mohammad Akhgari, deputy
chair of IRIB international affairs, launched a new news network dubbed ‘Pars Today’ on 5 July 2017,
currently chaired by Behruz Ghazalpash. ‘Pars Today’ began its activities by launching ‘Parrena’, an
Albanian-language website. Its goal is to spread misinformation against members of the PMOI. The website
is run by Amir Eshkurti, who in 2017 visited Tehran together with an Albanian state news and radio
delegation. The husband of Anne Singleton, the infamous MOIS agent Massoud Khodabandeh, conducted
an interview attacking the PMOI with the ‘Impact’ website, which was published in Albanian. ‘Pars Today’
immediately republished the story.

The identity of dozens of the Iranian regime’s intelligence agents in other countries, have also been
unveiled, along with their activities. Many of them work as “Iranian experts”. They have been ordered to
focus attacks and surveillance activities on Iranian opposition members in Albania. The regime’s on-going
misinformation campaign against its main democratic opposition movement is now very much focused on
Tirana where the 3,000 former residents of Ashraf and Liberty have sought refuge.

On 12 February 2018 the Albanian “Top Channel News” in cooperation with Iranian embassy produced a
totally biased TV programme in which they broadcast an interview with three agents of the Ministry of
Intelligence under the name of former members of the opposition, PMOI, throwing false accusations at the
movement. These three were fully briefed by Anne Singleton during one of her trips to Albania.

A memorial ceremony in Tehran to commemorate the renowned Albanian poet Naim Frashëri (1846-
1900), has been reported in the Iranian state media, raising questions how a regime, which frequently jails
poets and writers or forces them to flee into exile, has suddenly re-discovered its cultural soul. However,
on closer examination it can be seen that many of the participants in the ceremony were members of the
Nejat Association, a branch of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS), with a declared mandate to
demonize and dismantle the main democratic opposition, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI); others
15
attending the Tehran ceremony were described by Iran’s state media as journalists, educators and
academics from Albania and other Balkan countries.

The fact that Albania, by accepting the PMOI activists, has denied the regime the opportunity to massacre
them has been troubling Iranian leaders for some time. The growing friendship and mutual trust between
the Iranian opposition and the people of Albania and the increasing respect of Albanian politicians from
major parties for them together with the disclosure of Iran’s plots in Albania by the PMOI has forced even
the regime loyalists to acknowledge some of these realities. Olsi Jazexhi, a well-known apologist of Iranian
regime in Albania recently said "The problem is that the Mojahedin (PMOI) have attracted the support of
a large number of Albanian politicians, musicians, students, and civil society activists, and an American
senator visits the PMOI in Albania every three months and hold large meetings with Albanian politicians."
The regime is indeed very angry of the support for Iranian resistance and Mrs Maryam Rajavi in Europe.

Some of the regime apologists now even pretend to be “concerned” for PMOI members’ “well-being”. Ms
Gomes who as an MEP never said uttered a word of sympathy during the years Iranian refugees were
brutally beaten and killed in Iraq, has recently claimed that some PMOI members in Albania “are held
against their will” and that their relatives have “no access” to them. We remember well that similar claims
in Ashraf and Liberty were a prelude to terrorist attacks and missile attacks against the Iranian dissidents
in Iraq. We are well acquainted with the phenomenon of "PMOI Victims" and "former PMOI members" in
Iran. They are recruited and used by Iranian secret services to feed the regime’s lobby in the West.

The Albanian media reported on 22 March 2018 about the arrest of two Iranians in Tirana, suspected of
terrorism. They were taking photos of Nowruz celebrations in the city and told the police that they were
journalists. The press also added that from the beginning of March, Albanian Intelligence and anti-
terrorism units are holding 10 Iranian citizens who are thought capable of organizing terrorist operations
in Albania, especially against the PMOI members who have taken refuge in the country.

Iran the leading sponsor of terrorism and fundamentalism across the globe

It is of great importance that the Albanian government understands that Iran is the leading sponsor of
terrorism and fundamentalism across the globe and will do its utmost to undermine Albania’s selfless act
of humanitarian compassion to the PMOI refugees. The Albanian government must expose the true nature
of the Iranian regime and distance its reach from all Albanian institutions and media outlets. Such an effort
will prevent Tehran from pursuing its conspiracies and implementing its terror blueprints in the country.

In a televised interview on 19 April, the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, in response to a question about
terrorist threats against the PMOI in his country, said: “I believe that, for PMOI we did the right thing. We
gave accommodation to a group which is persecuted. And that's it. Regarding your question about security
and threats, we are on the right side of history, we are in a group of countries of the Euro Atlantic club
which are threatened in the same way. I believe that all these countries take measures against terrorist
threats.”

Prime Minister Rama was referring to the widespread terrorist plots by Iranian services against the
Iranian Resistance in various countries, from Albania to Germany and even as far as the United States.
For example, since the start of 2018, there have been repeated cases of suspicious activities outside the
office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Berlin, such as reconnoitring, photographing and
mock parking manoeuvres. The police and relevant officials were informed of these cases for which the
regime uses both Iranian agents and non-Iranian mercenaries. At the start of April 2018, all signs pointed
to preparation for a terrorist strike, and relevant officials were informed. Simultaneously, there were
several cases of suspicious acts of surveillance near the NCRI office in Washington by individuals of
various nationalities, which point to serious terrorist threats. The relevant US law enforcement officials
were informed of these threats.

16
The US State Department has now recognised and exposed the dangerous and destructive role of the
Iranian regime in the Middle East and the systematic violation of human rights across the zone that
characterizes its aggressive attempts to spread Islamic fundamentalism. The US Treasury Department has
listed the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as an international terrorist organisation, joining the
Quds Force, which has been on international blacklists for some years. The IRGC and the body responsible
for extra-territorial operations - the Quds Force, are the main vehicles for Iran’s aggressive expansionism
in the Middle East.

Over the past seven years the world has witnessed in horror how the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has
massacred his own people, even using barrel bombs and chemical weapons like Sarin gas, while enjoying
unlimited financial and military support from Iran and air cover from the Russians. Iran is pumping billions
of dollars in weapons and military resources into Syria in its effort to prop up the blood-soaked regime of
Assad. Iran has committed 70,000 frontline troops to the Syrian civil war. The regime is careful to send
Afghan refugees who have sought sanctuary in Iran, to die on the Syrian battlefields as cannon fodder.
Their widows are then offered full Iranian citizenship and a meagre pension by way of compensation.

The IRGC is also behind most of the brutal Shi’ite militias who during 2014-2017 rampaged through the
predominantly Sunni provinces of Iraq, massacring families and levelling cities like Ramadi, Fallujah and
Mosul in the name of the war against Daesh (ISIS). The Iranian regime's violence and crimes in other
countries in the region and in particular its suppression of Sunnis, carried out under the banner of Shi’ite
Islam, is what provoked the original backlash that in turn spawned the birth of groups like Daesh who
sought to establish an “Islamic Caliphate” while spreading their violence and brutality to the four corners
of the globe. It is a great irony that Iran has exploited the campaign against Daesh as an opportunity to
carry out its genocidal crusade against the Sunnis, at the same time fooling the West into regarding the
theocratic regime as an ally, even coaxing the US into providing vital air support.

Iran cannot be part of the solution to the conflicts raging in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya. It is part of the
problem. Iran exports terror. This is the real Iran under the theocratic rule of the mullahs, whose so-called
‘moderate’ president Rouhani the West believes it can do deals with. But it should be plain for all to see
that if Tehran is prepared to devote billions to the export of terror and conflict across the Middle East in
pursuit of its fundamentalist goals, then the financing of an army of trained MOIS agents to demonise and
attack the main democratic opposition PMOI movement across the whole of Europe and North America is
never going to pose any difficulty. Massive resources are devoted to this cause and to buying the support
of corrupt decision-makers and opinion-shapers in the West.

17
CHAPTER SIX

Network of Iran’s agents in Europe

The regime is also astute in its ability to target former supporters of the PMOI who, for various reasons,
have voluntarily decided to leave the movement. They are quickly sought out by MOIS agents like Anne
Singleton and her husband Khodabandeh, who use threats against their families in Iran, or lucrative bribes
to turn them into allies of the regime; most of them despite threats and bribes do not cooperate with the
regime. But the ones who do are often taken to Tehran for training then they are unleashed against their
former PMOI colleagues, making outrageous claims of torture or abuse and other fatuous claptrap. Sadly
some naïve Western media outlets occasionally fall for this rubbish, publishing groundless accusations of
PMOI ‘cult-like’ activities, forced incarceration and other nonsensical lies that are easily refuted.

Iran’s network of spies in Europe is extensive. On 13th July 2015, Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad was arrested by
the French gendarmerie, when he travelled to Auvers-sur-Oise in Northern Paris, to reconnoitre the
residence of Maryam Rajavi. He confessed to the French police that he was in contact with Ahmad Zarif, in
the Iranian Embassy in Paris. He said that Mohammad Hossein Sobhani travels every month from the MOIS
headquarters in Germany to Paris and pays €500 monthly salaries to Hosseinnejad and other MOIS agents.
Indeed Mohammad Hossein Sobhani was already known to the French police. In June 2007 he was arrested
with various other MOIS agents after they disrupted a meeting of Iranian refugees in Paris, attacking and
wounding some of the participants.

A Canadian citizen known as Gholam Reza Sadeghi Jebelli (aka Jebeli), now mostly living in Belgium, is
another active member of the European network of the MOIS. He is frequently in the European Parliament.
He started working for the regime in 1980 after being arrested and ‘turned’ by the IRGC. In 2008, with an
Iranian passport and a visa from the Iraqi embassy in Tehran, he went to Iraq to harass the PMOI members
in Camp Ashraf but was arrested by the Iraqi police and the American forces who were responsible for the
protection of the camp at that time. On 6 December 2017, Jebeli began shouting and insulting the security
officials of the European Parliament when he was prevented from entering the parliament.

Two other agents who visit the European Parliament regularly to meet Ana Gomes MEP, are Ali-Akbar
Rastgou and Mehdi Khoshhal. The German Der Spiegel, on 14 July 2008, wrote about the two men: “German
security agencies released two weeks ago two Iranian-born German nationals who were detained for more
than five weeks under suspicion of espionage in a prison in Baghdad. Ali R., a resident of the city of Cologne,
his acquaintance Mehdi K, who lives in Baghdad, and an Iranian who travelled to Baghdad in late May, were
arrested there by security forces. They must have identified an ‘important national interest facility’. Ali R is
an active member of the Aawa Association, based in Cologne, that confronts the left-muslim People’s
Mojahedin Organization.”

Another agent who has been frequently visiting EU parliament is Davood Baghervand Arshad. Baghervand
was for some years in the PMOI but left Camp Ashraf after situation became difficult in Iraq. He was offered
amnesty by Iranian regime in return for collaboration and went to Iran in 2005. There, he was fully
recruited and spent several years to receive special training and instructions from the intelligence ministry
and was sent abroad in 2015 with the aim of countering Iranian resistance's work in Europe. In March and
April this year he published photos of his private meetings with Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes and French
MEP Patricia Lalonde both of whom are known for their collaborations with Tehran.

At a time of heightened security throughout the EU and North America, in the wake of a series of attacks
by Islamist terrorists, it is time that Western security forces and anti-terrorist units took action to prevent
the penetration of Iran’s army of MOIS agents and spies into almost every country. These agents operate
under the direction of the MOIS or a branch of the IRGC and its notorious Quds Force. Their activities
include the assassination of dissidents, espionage against opponents and spreading mass disinformation
against the opposition movement – the PMOI/MEK and NCRI. In the last 39 years, these agents in

18
Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, France and Turkey have carried out dozens of assassinations. The
murders are still going on.

On 29 April 2017, Saeed Karimian, a 45-year-old London-based Iranian TV executive and chairman of the
GEM satellite TV network, was assassinated in Turkey, where his TV station had a branch. In January 2017
a revolutionary court in Tehran had condemned him in absentia to a 6-year prison term for spreading
propaganda and acting against national security.

In July 2016, Maysam Panahi, an MOIS agent, was sentenced in Germany to two and a half years
imprisonment for spying on the NCRI and the PMOI. According to German court papers, he was connected
to a veteran intelligence officer of the MOIS. Panahi was a former affiliate of the PMOI who went from Camp
Liberty to Hotel Mohajer in Baghdad, a place that was under Tehran’s control. There he was recruited by
Iranian intelligence. He was later taken to Iran by the MOIS for training and then sent to Germany.
According to the verdict of a Berlin court, Panahi received €28,000 from the MOIS for sharing his
information.

On 25th March 2017, Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi, a Pakistani national, was convicted in Germany of spying
for Iran, specifically of searching out potential targets for attacks by the IRGC. According to A spokesman
for Berlin’s superior court, Syed-Naqfi was sentenced to four years and three months in prison “for working
for a foreign intelligence service”. The court found he had “spied against Germany and another NATO
member,” France, for the Quds Force. Syed-Naqfi compiled dossiers on possible targets – namely a German
lawmaker who is the former head of a German-Israeli organisation and a French-Israeli economics
professor. In its latest report published in July 2017, the domestic intelligence service of Germany - The
Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV) stated that the
PMOI and NCRI are the primary targets of spying activity by the Iranian MOIS.

On 8 November 2017, Iran’s espionage network in The Hague assassinated an Iranian dissident by the
name of Ahmad Mola Nissi. Having interviewed his daughter, Reuters wrote on 12 December: “The
daughter of an Iranian Arab activist killed in the Netherlands last month ... warned other exiles in Europe to
be on their guard. Ahmad Mola Nissi, 52, was gunned down by an unidentified assailant in front of his home
in The Hague.”

Following the assassination of 4 Iranian Kurdish dissidents in the Mykonos Restaurant, Berlin, in 1992, the
German Federal Court of Justice found that the murders were directly linked to the Iranian authorities at
the highest level, i.e. the Supreme Leader, President, Ministers of Intelligence and Foreign Affairs, after
which the EU in April 1997 agreed to expel all MOIS agents from EU Member States. Regrettably, as a result
of the EU’s policy of appeasement this sanction has been lifted and a great many trained MOIS agents are
once again active across the EU, creating a clear and present danger.

19
CHAPTER SEVEN

Iranian Regime’s lobbying methods

Iran spends vast amounts of money on lobbyists on both sides of the Atlantic. It even provides financial aid
to some universities, ostensibly for research, via fake charitable organisations, like the US-based Alavi
Foundation, whose assets are currently under threat of court seizure for violation of the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act and for money laundering offences.

The lobbyists have penetrated the West’s key media outlets and parliaments. The Iranian intelligence
services increasingly rely on trained foreigners, rather than Iranians, to propagate their misinformation,
to allay the suspicion of their targets. This has become readily apparent, for example, in the annual UN
Human Rights Council meetings in Geneva, where significant numbers of European lobbyists busy
themselves in spreading falsehoods and defamations on behalf of the Iranian regime. They have even set
up state controlled NGO’s for this purpose, leading to vigorous protests by other genuine, non-Iranian
NGO’s, over the abuse of the NGO framework and mechanism.

The Iranians offer staggering amounts of money to spread their lies. On 5th July 2010, the Canadian Daily’
– ‘Toronto Sun – reported one such case: “John Thompson, who heads up the Mackenzie Institute, a security
minded think-tank, says China isn’t alone in trying to gain influence. Thompson, who is often called on by
media outlets to offer up analysis, says he was offered $80,000 by a man tied to Iran’s mission in Canada.
‘They wanted me to publish a piece on the Mujahedin-e Khalq’ he said. ‘Iran is trying to get other countries to
label it as a terrorist cult.’ Thompson says he turned down the offer.”

The activities of the Iranian funded lobbyists are regularly reinforced by Iranian diplomats, ministers and
MPs. Whenever the regime hears of an intended visit to any parliament in Europe by Maryam Rajavi, the
regime goes into overdrive, ordering its ambassadors to meet or telephone leading members of that
parliament and occasionally even prime ministers and party leaders, in an attempt to prevent such visits
from taking place. In addition, visits to Tehran by delegations from Western parliaments are always
exploited as a propaganda tool by the regime, which lobbies the participating parliamentarians relentlessly
with negative messages aimed at demonizing the PMOI.

Individual MPs in the European Parliament and in Western democracies are also singled out for an
onslaught of misinformation, whenever they express support for the PMOI or call for freedom and
democracy in Iran. They are often bombarded with misinformation about Iran’s main democratic
opposition and can on occasion also receive calls from the Iranian embassy or from people who claim to
be disaffected former members of the PMOI, although they are in fact trained MOIS agents who have been
recruited by the regime.

In a recent example, a pro-Iran Portuguese MEP, who has a history of hostility towards the PMOI,
organised a meeting aimed at undermining the status of Iranian refugees in Albania, following her visit to
Tehran in February this year. (See statement Annex 1).

20
CONCLUSION

Demonization and disinformation against the opposition have been a common practice by the theocratic
regime since its inception, especially against the PMOI. This has been practiced as a prelude to suppression,
killing and assassination. In order to justify its crimes, the regime needs to discredit its opposition.
Demonization of the residents of camps Ashraf and Liberty and military and rocket attacks and their
killings were a cycle that took place repeatedly between 2008 and 2016.

Two major developments turned the balance incredibly against the regime and in favour of the opposition.
Firstly, the safe and organized relocation of all members of the PMOI from Iraq to Albania that snatched
the opportunity from the regime to massacre them. Secondly, the people’s uprising that started in the final
days of 2017. The regime’s supreme leader and the president both openly acknowledged that the PMOI
was the main driving force behind the mass protests.

Mounting economic and social crises in Iran has been reflected in a sharp fall in the value of the Iranian
currency, which has gone down by one third within the past three months. In addition, developments in
the US have removed the type of support typified by the previous Obama administration, throwing Tehran
into a period of confusion and seriously weakening the regime. All of these issues have brought the
prospect of change in Iran to the fore.

Typically, in these circumstances, Tehran has stepped up its cycle of demonization and terrorist and
espionage activities targeting the main democratic opposition movement, especially in Albania. After
extensive apparently diplomatic and cultural activities against the PMOI, the Albanian media reported on
21 March 2018 that two Iranians had been detained in Albania for suspected terrorist plans. It was also
reported that ten others are under surveillance. The reports indicated that their possible target was the
PMOI. In 2017, two assassinations of Iranian dissidents took place in Turkey and the Netherlands. The
Western intelligence and security sources highlighted credible terrorist threats against the PMOI.

Tehran has set up a major apparatus with hundreds of millions of dollars to advance its policy of
demonization and disinformation. Some of the common methods used by the regime include the
deployment of sophisticated lobbies in the US and Europe, the dispatch of agents under the pretext of being
refugees to these countries, paying journalists, media and PR companies specially in Albania to demonize
the PMOI/MEK.

The regime’s intimidations through espionage and terrorism are not limited to the opposition. It threatens
western countries’ interests as well. Last year, a Pakistani citizen in Germany, who was working for Iranian
services, was accused of identifying German and French pro-Israeli personalities and passing the
information to the Quds forces. He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.

The Iranian regime has been using two factors: First, the opportunities and grounds that were created to
its benefit by the policy of appeasement in the United States and Europe. Second, Taking advantage of
democratic mechanisms in Western countries. According to a decision made by the Council of the
European Union in its session of 29 April 1997 16, all the intelligence agents of Iran had to be expelled from
European countries after the Federal Court in Berlin held the Iranian regime’s leaders responsible for
assassinating Iranian Kurdish leaders in the Mikonos restaurant 17in September 1992.

A firm policy by western countries both in the United States and Europe is necessary to ensure the safety
of the genuine Iranian refugees and opponents of the regime, as well as the safety of those countries in a
more general picture. Such a policy requires that Tehran’s agents and spies be expelled with no
exceptions made. Tehran’s official and unofficial lobbyists must be identified and monitored and should
be held accountable for their acts in violation of European laws.

16
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_PESC-97-41_en.htm
17
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykonos_restaurant_assassinations
21
Annex 1 – Campaign for Iran Change - Statement 9 April 2018:

Brussels- 9 April 2018

Iranian regime agents in the European Parliament; political cover for terrorist acts against the
opposition in Albania

Iran’s deep frustration after the organized transfer of thousands of members of the main democratic
opposition movement from Iraq to Albania and the loss of the opportunity to massacre them is not a
secret. This transfer was the result of an unprecedented campaign by the Iranian opposition and its
supporters in Europe and the United States. It took place under the noses of the theocratic regime while
Tehran had put all it’s efforts into preventing their transfer and orchestrating either their surrender or
their annihilation.

The Iranian regime’s officials have now acknowledged that the main opposition movement, the People’s
Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI or MEK), played a key role in launching the recent nationwide protests and anti-
government demonstrations. According to AFP, on 2 January 2018, President Hassan Rouhani called
President Macron and asked him to take action against the Paris-based Iranian opposition and their
leader Maryam Rajavi, which he accused of fomenting the recent protests. President Macron rejected his
demand.

On 9 January 2018, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, said the PMOI had organized the
uprising and implicitly threatened to execute the arrested protesters. The Iranian regime is now citing
these events as a reason to exert pressure and instigate terrorist acts against the PMOI in Albania.

The appointment of Gholam Hossein Mohammad Nia and Mostafa Roodaki, two senior officials of the
Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS), as the ambassador and first secretary of the embassy in Tirana
has been a clear indication of the regime’s malign intentions. Ostensibly, their role is to create religious
and cultural institutions, which in fact are guileless covers for the sinister activities of the two branches
of the Iranian MOIS in Albania, functioning under the names of the Habilian Center and the Didban
Institute.

These organisations employ local Albanians and train them to demonize the PMOI, launching websites
and TV channels in Albania and purchasing several nationwide TV programmes. On 22 March 2018, the
Albanian media reported that two Iranians had been arrested on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism
and a further ten people were detained for questioning, adding that the PMOI was a possible target. This
has been the same pattern pursued by the mullahs’ over the past four decades, spreading lies and
misinformation to prepare the ground for repression and acts of terrorism. In Camps Ashraf and Liberty
in Iraq, an orchestrated campaign of demonization combined with vicious terrorist and missile attacks
were part of the daily routine aimed at terrorising the unarmed and defenceless PMOI refugees. Now Iran
is focusing on Albania where the pattern will inevitably be repeated.

The MOIS and its affiliated agents, lobbies and pro-regime politicians are determined to undermine the
Iranian opposition’s status in Europe and to portray them as a threat to Albania and the Balkans. It is
interesting and not surprising to see that many of the main actors of this recent campaign in Albania and
Europe are the same ones who worked against the Camp Ashraf and Liberty residents when they were
stuck inside Iraq. This is despite the fact that Western security services in 2017 and 2018 found new
signs of credible threats against Iranian opposition activists. In 2017, two Iranian dissidents were
assassinated in Turkey and the Netherlands.

We are alarmed to learn that a meeting is planned to take place in the European Parliament entitled:
“Mojahedin e-Khalq (MEK) a threat in Albania” on April 10, 2018. It is being organized by a pro-Iran
Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes, who has a history of hostility towards the PMOI. Gomes has recently
returned from a visit to Tehran.

22
In April 2009 when we were going to vote in favour of a resolution in the European Parliament calling for
the protection of Ashraf residents, Ms Gomes proposed 7 amendments to damage our efforts. Had her
amendments been adopted it would have given give a free hand to the Iraqi government to suppress the
residents. All her seven amendments were rejected by a majority of MEPs. But her strange behaviour and
open hostility towards the Iranian opposition raised a lot of protests in the European Parliament and
even in the British Parliament at the time.

After her recent visit to Iran, Ms Gomes said in the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee on 22
February 2018, “… I met with relatives of the victims of a terrorist organisation, called the MEK, Mojahedin
of the People, and National Council of whatever revolutionary Iran...! They are creating troubles in Albania,
trouble that will come to haunt us... (and) are keeping people hostage namely in Albania.” These remarks
are clearly defamations and judicially prosecutable.

During her stay in Iran, she had additional meetings with the Habilian Institute and Nejat Association,
two branches of the MOIS.

The list of speakers scheduled for her meeting on April 10, 2018 clearly reveals the nature of this farce,
as it includes Anne Singleton (Khodabandeh), an Iranian regime agent exposed by a US Pentagon &
Library of Congress report in December 2012.

In June 2004, Win Griffiths, a former Labour Member of the British Parliament, travelled to Tehran to
meet a prisoner in Evin prison. In a witness statement he said: “When I went to Evin, expecting to meet
the detainees in private, I was surprised to see Anne Khodabandeh (Singleton), Ebrahim’s sister-in-law, in
Evin Prison. She later claimed that she was there as part of an NGO visit. Yet it was clear to me that the
prison guards treated her as a friend and on their side, rather than as a member of an independent NGO”.

Singleton visited Tirana no fewer than three times in November 2017 alone and went on to discuss “the
threats of the PMOI in Albania" during a meeting in Ms. Gomes' office in the European Parliament in
Brussels on 5 December 2017. Anne Singleton was seen and photographed outside Camps Ashraf and
Liberty in Iraq, prior to deadly attacks that took place in both camps.

Other speakers at the meeting in the European Parliament include: Olsi Jazexhi and Migena Balla. This
Albanian couple are strong advocates of the Iranian regime and work closely with Singleton.

I believe it is very unwise to allow the Iranian regime and its agents to misuse the European Parliament.
The 1997 decision of the European Union to expel Iranian intelligence agents from Europe must be
implemented in the European Parliament with greater emphasis and these agents should not be allowed
to appear there.

STRUAN STEVENSON
Coordinator
Campaign for Iran Change (CIC)

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Annex 2 – photos and documents taken from internet

From (L to R): Issa Azadeh, Reza Jebeli, Ana Gomes,

Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad

Anne Singleton (Khodabandeh) posing for a photo in Ana From (L to R): Batoul Soltani, Homeira Mohammadnejad,
Gomes’ office in European Parliament 5 December 2017 Ana Gomes, Reza Jebeli, Aliakbar Rastgou

Anne Singleton with Ahlam Maleki an Iraqi agent of Quds Force in front of Camp Ashraf – 2011

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Mohammad Hossein Sobhani and two other agents of the Iranian Mohammad Hossein Sobhani in European Parliament
regime in French police custody on the charges of knife-wielding
in Paris

German paper, Der Spiegel July 14, 2008: Two Iranian regime’s agents
L: Mehdi Khoshhal R: Aliakbar Rastgou Aliakbar Rastgou and Mehdi Khoshhal, arrested in Iraq

L: Batoul Soltani’s Iranian passport issued in 2008 R: Batoul Soltani in European Parliament 2015

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From L: Aliakbar Rastgou, Massoud Khodabandeh, Nicola Pedde, Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad helping Heidar Azab Mashi the
Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad in European Parliament 2017 murderer of Ashraf residents to identify individuals 2013

Reza Jebeli’s arrest by U.S military police and Iraqi police March 2008

Canadian newspaper report: Gholam Reza Sadeghi Jebelli’s Reza Jebeli’s Iranian passport stamped with Iraqi visa in 2008
arrest for child abduction

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Davoud Baghervand Arshad in Iran in 2005 Davoud Baghervand Arshad in European Parliament, April 2017

Davoud Baghervand Arshad with Patricia Lalonde 17 April 2018 Davoud Baghervand Arshad with Ana Gomes,, March 2018

From (L to R): Mohammad Hossein Sobhani, Issa Azadeh, Reza Jebeli, Alireza Nasrollahi, Shiite Mullah Al-Husseini,
Amir Movasseghi, Batoul Soltani, Zahra Moeini, Mohammad Razzaghi, Mansour Nazari, Ghafour Fattahian,
Ghorbanali Hosseinnejad, Aliakbar Rastgou, Edvard Termadou
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Struan Stevenson was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014),
president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of Friends
of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an international lecturer on the Middle East and is also
president of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA) and Coordinator of Campaign for Iran
Change (CIC).

Email: office.stevenson@gmail.com