CNRI, 11 Novembre – Recent repulsive statements by the Iranian regime’s president Ahmadinejad drew strong international condemnation. Subsequently, a series of conferences were convened in the British parliament to condemn appeasement of the regime, call for a referral of Tehran’s nuclear file to the UN Security Council, express support for Iranian opposition members in Camp Ashraf in Iraq, and urge the de-proscription of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
A 35,000-strong protest outside the European Union Headquarters in Brussels was attended by British MPs from all three major parties in the UK in solidarity with the protesters goals in condemnation of the Iranian regime. A meeting in London today, sponsored by the Iranian regimes’ Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), was an attempt by the faltering Iranian regime to overshadow these setbacks.
The MOIS campaign, however, failed miserably and turned into yet another embarrassment for the mullahs and their agents.
The meeting, initially scheduled to convene on Thursday morning in the office of Baroness Emma Nicholson, a British MEP, in a building annexed to the House of Lords, was cancelled in the face of concerted opposition from MPs and peers and human rights advocates in the UK.
The stat-run news agency, IRNA, which initially reported the meeting on Wednesday, November8, wrote on Thursday that the meeting “in a building of the House of Commons” was cancelled. The Iranian regime attempted to gloss over the opposition to the meeting and its agents, announced through the IRNA dispatch that the meeting “had been postponed to the afternoon because more time was needed to arrange for it and the venue had been changed to a hotel and that it was no longer in the House of Commons.”
In a statement on the meeting, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, Chair of the Labor Peers in the House of Lords and the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Iran Freedom, said, “It is incredible that those using terror at home, sponsoring and inciting it abroad should think anyone sensible in London wants to listen to them.”
“Their wild allegations about the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, PMOI show the success of the Iranian Resistance in exposing the Mullahs’ nuclear deception, their aid to those killing British troops in Iraq and their escalating abuse of human rights,” Lord Corbett added.
Mr. Win Griffiths, former Labor MP for Bridgend, said,”Regrettably, Baroness Nicholson has for many years had close relations with the Iranian regime and as such has on occasion made unjustified statements in support of the Iranian regime and against the PMOI. She travels to Iran regularly and was recently reported by the Iranian regime’s media to have met the head of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (‘Kayhan’ 16 March 2005).
Mr. Griffiths added, “Baroness Nicholson has in the past made scathing attacks on the PMOI, which have later been proved to be entirely false. By way example, she told the House of Lords on 26 February 2003, just prior to the beginning of the war in Iraq that, ‘I have evidence from others that the MKO [PMOI] has actively hidden weapons of mass destruction from the earlier inspectors…I have clear evidence of the ways in which the MKO shifted around weapons of mass destruction. Their commanders pushed them away, hid them, and boasted afterwards of having been successful in fooling the inspectors.’”
The mullahs’ regime seems to have foreseen the embarrassing debacle for its apologists and agents in the UK and enlisted the help of Gary Sick, notorious for lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime in the United States, to email an invitation for the London meeting to his mailing list of thousands of subscribers. Gary Sick wrote that Emma Nicholson would chair a panel of speakers comprising a Dutch woman, Judith Neurink, and a French man, named Alain Chevalerais. Gary Sick was one of the proponents of the appalling report by Human Rights Watch against the Mojahedin in May. Sick staunchly defended Ahmadinejad after he became President, describing him as a populist. He has also been a vivid apologist of Ahmadinejad’s revolting statements recently.
Despite the numerous MOIS press releases and invitations, Emma Nicholson failed to show up at the meeting. Nor did the announced speaker from the Netherlands. Other than notorious MOIS agents Karim Haqi, Massoud Khodabandeh, and Anne Singleton, the only other invited speaker to attend was Alain Chevalieras – a well-known French operative of the MOIS. No British politicians or journalists participated. In fact, not even a single British citizen was present at the meeting.
Karim Haqi has collaborated with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) since 1995. The Dutch security services in February 2000 warned Haqi and several other MOIS agents over their links to the MOIS and for being on the payroll of the Iranian secret services for participating in a demonising disinformation campaign against the Iranian resistance. Haqi has travelled frequently to Asian countries to meet with MOIS handlers and received money and instructions for his operations in Europe.
Massoud Khodabandeh has been in the service of the MOIS since the mid 1990s. He has made numerous trips to Tehran and East Asia to be briefed by MOIS on operations in Europe. According to a witness statement filed with the British Courts on November 12, 2002, by Khodabandeh’s brother, Massoud Khodabandeh is an MOIS agent. Ebrahim Khodabandeh also pointed to the long record of cooperation between Anne Singleton (the wife of Massoud Khodabandeh), whom IRNA had introduced as "Mojahedin’s former British member" and MOIS, including her many trips to Iran. She launched the website Iran-Interlink immediately after returning from a month-long trip to Tehran in early 2002 after receiving funding and instructions from the MOIS.
Chevalerais, a French operative of the Iranian regime, also participated in the plot in spring 2005 to cause disturbances in Auvers-sur-Oise, where the Iranian resistance’s President-elect resides. He led and coordinated a group of Iranian agents in the town’s square. Based on irrefutable documents published by the Iranian resistance, he has made expenses-paid trips to Tehran as a guest of an MOIS front organization called The House of Labor. House of Labor was set up and is operated by Ali Rabi’i, the secretary of the regime’s Supreme National Security Council under Mohammad Khatami and a former MOIS deputy director.
Participation in the London meeting was restricted to trusted invitees of the MOIS who had to show invitation cards out of fear of protests by freedom-loving Iranians who deeply despise the regime and its agents. Only seven people attended the meeting and five of them began questioning the organizers when it became clear who they were. The meeting ended in embarrassment for the regime’s agents.
Karim Haqi said in the meeting that Ahmadinejad was sincere and courageous. He defended the mullahs’ regime’s terrorists and claimed that the Mojahedin posed a greater danger than the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions. London Metropolitan police arrived at the meeting upon learning of the statements in support of the mullahs’ regime and terrorist groups, and proceeded to check the organizers’ identification cards.
The embarrassing failure of the MOIS, its agents and British apologists, only added to a string of futile meetings in Amsterdam and Washington, DC that were interrupted by protests from Iranians dissidents who questioned the organizers about their links to the MOIS.
The agents, who pose as former PMOI members and collaborate with the MOIS, are active in Tehran’s disinformation campaign to demonize the Iranian resistance and set the stage for terrorist operations against resistance activists. They also collect intelligence on Iranian refugees and dissidents.
The Iranian Resistance once again draws the attention of the authorities in the United Kingdom to the activities of the Iranian regime’s intelligence operatives in spying and planning terrorist acts against Iranian political refugees and resistance activists on European soil. It calls on UK law enforcement agencies to identify, prosecute and deport these agents from that country
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 10, 2005