NCRI – On Thursday, February 11, the court of Paris rejected allegations of slander and libel filed against Mr. Yves Bonnet, former Member of French National Assembly and Director of the French Counterterrorism Agency (DST), for the revelations he made about the activities of agents of the Iranian regime's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) against the regime's political opponents in Paris. As such, extensive activities of the mullahs' MOIS and its campaign to spread false information to demonize the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) were confirmed by a court in Paris.
Moreover, the legal fabrications and complaints of the notorious MOIS in France against Mr. Bonnet and the Iranian Resistance for revealing the agents and network of the MOIS was defeated in the court of Paris. Mr. Bonnet's defense was led by the distinguished French lawyer Tire Levi.
Ehsan Naraqi, Jahangir Shadanlou and Manouchehr Shalali had filed a libel suit against Mr. Bonnet for identifying them as agents of the mullahs' MOIS in Paris in his book "VEVAK: At the Service of the Ayatollahs. " In his book, Mr. Bonnet had uncovered the activities and links of these three individuals with the MOIS, including their activities the Iranian Resistance in France.
The book refers to Naraqi as a "triple agent" who has been involved in "organizing a campaign to discredit the Iranian Resistance." The book also says that Naraqi, "a member of Tudeh Party of Iran in the early years of the Shah's rule," was "soon recruited by the SAVAK [Shah's secret police]." He was arrested after the 1979 revolution.
Regarding Manouchehr Shalali, the book says that he "in particular is among those agents who were tasked with infiltrating [the regime’s opposition]. There are no doubts about his links with Iranian secret services."
The third agent, Jahangir Shadanlou, founded "the society for protection of Iranian immigrants," which "played the role of something akin to a recruiting center for new agents," and "a trap for asylum seekers and the Iranian community in France through the exploitation of national sentiments," according to the book.
The Paris Court declared that based on the entire evidence put forward by Mr. Yves Bonnet on the links and activities of these individuals, their complaint is rejected. Prior to the verdict and during the court proceedings, the prosecutor, too, highlighted Mr. Bonnet's status and sources, and described his conclusions as expressed in good faith.
In the course of court proceedings, a private letter by Ehsan Naraqi to the mullahs’ president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was revealed in which he had reminded Ahmadinejad of the services he had provided in France to the Iranian regime particularly against the PMOI. His attachments included a list of legal fees for Naraqi and Shadanlou which he had requested to be reimbursed for. Naraqi had also attached a receipt of the money he had paid for the filing of the complaint.
In his letter to Ahmadinejad, Naraqi had requested for help and expressed hope that with Ahmadinejad’s “efforts and backing" the regime's "authorities" "become more active so that together we would be able to expose and prove the false claims and fabrications of this book and the PMOI’s false propaganda before the eyes of French legal authorities, politicians, intellectuals and Europe’s public opinion.”"
In another letter to Ahmadinejad’s office, Naraqi had once again attached the bill of charges from his lawyer, also including his bank account information and requesting for the transfer of funds to his account.
During the hearing, Mr. Levi (Mr. Bonnet's lawyer) played an audio recording in which Ehsan Naraqi was having a conversation with one of the regime's officials and confessed to his active role in fabricating false legal cases against the Iranian Resistance in France, saying for example, that he took 40 to 50 regime contacts to the investigating judge to testify.
In another part of his argument, Mr. Levi referred to Naraqi's destructive role against Iranian intellectuals who were killed by the Iranian regime, at which point Naraqi interrupted Mr. Levi by shouting and screaming in the court room. On the judge’s orders, the court's security guards escorted Naraqi out of the room.
In addition to numerous documents revealing Jahangir Shadanlou's links with the MOIS presented to court, one witness told the court that Shadanlou, on behalf of the MOIS, had offered him to leave the NCRI in exchange for lucrative rewards.
A number of witnesses also testified about Shalali's links with the MOIS, including his efforts to infiltrate the community of PMOI supporters in France. Moreover, an affidavit was presented to court on behalf of the mayor of the city Taverny in Va d’Oise. The affidavit indicated that Shalali contacted the mayor on behalf of the Iranian regime's ambassador in France offering him an all-expenses-paid vacation to Kish Island in Iran.
Ehsan Naraghi had seven separate complaints about the contents of Yves Bonnet’s book, seeking 115,000 euros in compensation in addition to the payment of court fees by the author and publisher of the book “VEVAK: At the Service of the Ayatollahs.” The court found 5 of these complaints baseless and thus rejected them. These included complaints against the claim that Naraghi has been an MOIS agent, was a member of the Shah’s SAVAK, has justified torture against the PMOI and other Iranian activists, has backed Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdi, and entered UNESCO at the behest of the clerical regime.
The court only permitted two of the seven complaints, including that he had no role in the psychological torture of the PMOI and that he was not the one who took some individuals to testify against the PMOI to French services. As compensation, the court requested Mr. Bonnet to symbolically pay one single euro to him and also requested the publishing company to offer an explanation in this regard.
During the proceedings, Françoise Nicola, former French ambassador to Tehran, and Michele Debak, an official involved in the June 17th case against the Iranian Resistance, testified in support of the plaintiffs. Abolhassan Banisadr, the Iranian regime’s first president, also testified on behalf of Naraqi.
Mr. Sid Ahmad Ghozali, former Algerian Prime Minister, Claude Silberzahn, former Director of the French Army’s counter intelligence, Michel Olas, former DST Deputy Director, Francois Colcombet, former Supreme Court judge and former member of the French National Assembly, Paulo Casaca, former Member of European Parliament, as well as a number of Iranian political figures and personalities and supporters of the Iranian Resistance testified to confirm the role of the plaintiffs as agents of the Iranian regime's MOIS.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 11, 2010