On Monday, August 1, 2022, Top Channel TV in Albania announced the expulsion of two Iranian agents from Albania after 72 hours of holding them at Rinas Airport in an anti-terrorism operation.
The invitation letter stated that “Afshin Kalantari and Batool Soltani will attend a ceremony of their Iranian friend who came to Albania from Germany”. But “as soon as the invitation was presented by ASILA Association, which was sent to purportedly help Iranians living in Albania, the border police notified the Directorate of Anti-Terrorism of the country’s police.” The aforementioned association has been “under investigation for links to the Iranian regime and actions aimed at harming the security of MEK members that are refugees in Albania..”
Top Channel adds: “Two weeks ago, at the behest of the prosecutor of the anti-corruption and organized crime structure (SPAK), ASILA’S offices were inspected by the National Investigation Department (BKH).”
It is worth reminding that Afshin Kalantari and Batool Soltani are agents who went to Iran together on January 15, 2008, from TIPF (The Temporary Internment and Protection Facility), an exit facility under the control of US forces in Ashraf) upon prior coordination with the MOIS. In less than three weeks, Batool Soltani returned to Iraq after obtaining a passport from the MOIS to carry out a mission against the MEK. Afshin Kalantari was recruited by the Nejat Association (a branch of the MOIS).
Colonel Leo McCloskey, one of the US officers responsible for the protection of Ashraf from 2088 to 2009, said in his speech on March 24, 2012, at a large gathering in Paris about Batool Soltani as an agent of the Quds Force, “She went to Iran from Ashraf. Within a month or two after she left, I got a frantic call in the middle of the night from one of our police stations outside of Ashraf saying that Ms. Soltani was back in Iraq with an Iranian passport. And she told me a story through my interpreter that she had been brought back to Iran and was being forced to come back to Iraq because for the protection of her family. She said that she escaped from her captors in Baghdad, and then she wanted to come back to Camp Ashraf. Well, shortly thereafter she did show up back at Ashraf, in protest, saying that her husband was being held captive by the people of Ashraf. I personally interviewed her husband, as I have interviewed thousands of other people in Camp Ashraf, along with family members. She was there at the behest of the Quds Force as an agent of the Iranian government.”
The Iranian Resistance had announced in several letters to the ministers of the interior in the European Union countries that the MOIS and the terrorist Quds Force are engaged in exporting agents to various European countries to demonize the MEK and for espionage and paving the way for terrorism.
A letter dated April 16, 2008, to the German Minister of Interior, identified several of the Iranian regime’s agents if foreign countries who operate under the guise of “former members of the MEK”. They included Gholamreza Sadeghi Jebeli (Iranian passport number Z11029364), Batool Soltani Sedeh (Iranian passport number T12816605 issued in Isfahan on February 4, 2008). Both had entered Baghdad airport on February 10, 2008.
The same letter underscored: “The regime’s objective in bringing these people to Europe, in addition to slandering the regime’s opposition, especially the MEK, is espionage and laying the groundwork for terrorist activities against them. Admitting and giving free reins to the MOIS agents is a violation of the decision of the Council of Ministers at the April 1997 meeting in Luxembourg. Moreover, the presence of these agents endangers both the security of Iranian refugees and the security and peace in Europe… Take necessary measures to prevent the entry and residence of these people in European countries.”
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
Security and Counterterrorism Committee
August 2, 2022
