On November 27, 2020, four Iranian terrorist operatives will go on trial in Antwerp, Belgium. Among them is Iran’s regime diplomat-terrorist Assdolah Assadi. The following is the statement of Mr. Tahar Boumedra, former Chief of UNAMI Human Rights Office in Iraq, and former Special Advisor of the SRSG on issues related to Camp Ashraf.
I am Tahar Boumedra. I am the former Chief of UNAMI Human Rights Office in Iraq, and former Special Advisor of the SRSG on issues related to Camp Ashraf, where some 3400 members of the MEK lived as protected persons under the 4th Geneva convention. I solemnly testify of the following:
During my mission in Iraq and in Camp Ashraf, I have monitored the situation of the MEK members been subjected to all forms of persecution and to numerous armed attacks on orders by the Iranian authorities coordinated from the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad. Aware of the responsibility of the Iranian authorities of these attacks, I, together with the SRSG (first Ad Melkert and then Martin Kobler) used to meet periodically with the Iranian Ambassador in Baghdad to plead with him to stop the attacks against Camp Ashraf to no avail. Camp Ashraf was eventually closed and its residents moved to Camp Liberty near Baghdad Airport after an ultimatum was given by the Iranian Ambassador in Baghdad and the then Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki, to effect that the Camp be closed or its residents would face the consequences. It is public knowledge that even after closing Camp Ashraf and the transfer of its residents to Camp Liberty they were subject of deadly attacks on different occasions.
Based on the experience I gained on the ground, dealing with different interlocutors, namely the office of the Iraqi prime minister, the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, the diplomatic community in Baghdad, the Iraqi civil society and the residents of Camp Ashraf, I came to the conclusion that the Iranian authorities consider the MEK as the main serious threat to the Islamic Republic, hence the need to exterminate all members of the MEK who refuse to disband and repent.
My conviction is also based on extended research I have undertaken on the Iranian constitution and its bylaws. Two basic tenants characterise the Iranian regime. First, the protection of the Islamic Republic’s regime by the establishment of the IRCG that is given all the authority to that effect. The second is the export of the Islamic revolution with the aim of establishing a universal Islamic Republic. It is mandatory to use all means to achieve these constitutional goals including the eradication of all opposition. We have seen what the Iranian regime has done in the summer of 1988. More than 30,000 political prisoners were extra-judicially executed. It is also in this context that the Islamic Republic of Iran is striving to achieve the nuclear bomb.
The reported terrorist threat made by Assadollah Assadi, currently in detention in Belgium, suspected of organising a terrorist attack against the annual gathering of the MEK on 30 June 2018 in Villepinte, in France, stems from the Islamic Republic’s ideology imbodied in its constitution. This is not an individual act of some agents of the MOIS, they are policy decisions taken at the highest level of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
