Iran’s Operative Used Dual Nationality To Pursue Terrorism in Europe

New evidence published indicates how Iran’s terrorists, Nasimeh Naami and her husband Amir Sadouni, misused their refugee and citizenship status in Belgium to operate for the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

In a coordinated operation between June 28 to July 1, 2018, the European security services arrested Iran’s diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi and his three operatives, Naami, Sadouni and Mehrdad Arefani.

This terrorist group was on a mission to bomb the Iranian Resistance rally in France on June 30, 2018. Assadi was operating on behalf of the regime’s highest authorities. The evidence presented during the indictment by the prosecutor of Antwerp, where the terrorists are on trial, confirmed Iran’s state-sponsored terrorism.

The new documents show how Naami and Sadouni, despite having refugee status and later obtaining Belgian citizenship, secretly traveled to Iran to receive further instructions from the MOIS.

During the trial on November 30 and December 3, 2020, the court reviewed evidence suggesting Naami and Sadouni’s willing involvement in this terrorist plot. They had over 240,000 euros in their bank accounts and cash at their home. Thus, despite their claims of being under pressure by the regime to participate in this plot, they were the MOIS trained agents.

The new pieces of evidence further confirm this fact.

Documents show that after receiving an Iranian passport from the regime’s embassy in Belgium in 2010, Naami made several trips to Iran between 2010 and 2018 to be directly debriefed by the MOIS agents and attend intelligence-terrorism training courses. Some of these trips are registered in her Iranian passport, and some are not.

According to documents, from 2010 to 2018, she made at least 12 trips to Iran. In 2010, she made two trips, in 2011 one trip, in 2013 a total of four visits for 132 days, in 2014 one trip, in 2015 two trips, in 2017 two visits, and one trip in 2018 to Iran.

There is ample evidence of more Na’ami trips to Iran. Sadouni has accompanied her on five trips. In addition to these five trips, Saadouni himself has had separate trips to Iran.

1. On September 3, 2010, the terrorist couple traveled from Düsseldorf to Tehran and then to Ahvaz on a Mahan Air commercial flight and returned to Belgium using Iran Air a month later, on October 2, 2010.
2. On December 26, 2010, according to the stamps on page 40 of Na’ami’s first passport, she left for Tehran, Khomeini Airport, and from there to Ahvaz. She returned 18 days later, on January 13, 2011, to Belgium.
3. On December 20, 2011, Na’ami and Saadouni traveled on Iran Air from Cologne-Bonn Airport to Tehran and Ahvaz and returned to Belgium about a month later.
4. On March 10, 2013, Naami left Düsseldorf for Tehran and Ahvaz and returned three weeks later, on March 31.
5. Three months later, on June 13, 2013, Naami and Saadouni flew from Istanbul to Tehan and from there to Ahvaz, and returned on July 4, after 20 days, which is registered on page 10 of Naami’s passport.
6. On August 18, 2013, Na’ami went to Shiraz and returned a month and a half later, on September 29, which is registered on page 39 of her Iranian passport.
7. On November 14, 2013, Naami left Amsterdam for Tehran and from there went to Ahvaz and returned 17 days later, on December 1. This is registered on page 10 of her Iranian passport. Sadouni left for Iran three days later, on November 17, and they returned together.
8. On August 16, 2014, according to the stamps on page 7 of her Iranian passport, Na’ami left for Tehran via Brussels and returned on September 28, 2014, after 42 days.
9. Naami and Saadouni left for Iran in November 2015, but this trip is not registered in Naami’s passport. But it is registered on Saadouni’s Iranian passport.
10. On April 6, 2017, Naami flew from Brussels to Amsterdam on a KLM flight and from there to Khomeini Airport in Tehran and returned twelve days later, April 18, registered in her Iranian passport.
11. On November 2, 2017, Naami arrived at Khomeini Airport in Tehran and returned 12 days later, November 14, which is registered on page 40 of her Iranian passport.
12. On April 6, 2018, Naami went on an urgent trip to Kuwait and from there to Abadan. On Tuesday, April 10, she returned and informed Alireza Jamili (Naami’s boyfriend) that she had returned from Iran. This trip coincided with the visit of Assadollah Asadi to Iran, who was in Iran from March 28, 2018, to April 24, 2018.

These new pieces of evidence suggest how the Iranian regime and its agents misused their privileges in the European Union to conduct a terrorist operation, which could have resulted in thousands of deaths.

The regime, particularly the regime’s Foreign Ministry, and MOIS and its agents, used the European Union’s decades-long appeasement policy and inaction to operate on EU soil freely.

As it was reported in a piece on NCRI’s website, “Tehran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad-Javad Zarif, is a member of the Supreme National Security Council, which had approved the decision to carry out the 2018 Paris bomb plot. Assadollah Assadi is a Foreign Ministry official who simultaneously worked for the MOIS. The terrorist plot and the dual roles of Assadi demonstrate the close collaboration between the MOIS and the Foreign Ministry. Such coordination takes place at the highest levels between the regime’s Foreign Minister Zarif and its Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, under the supervision of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.”

Assadi and his accomplices’ trial again highlighted the necessity for the EU to end its appeasement policy and deal with Zarif as the main facilitator of terrorism on the EU soil and close the regime’s embassies and expel its agents from European countries. The EU should also take a firm policy toward Tehran by making all relations with the clerical regime contingent on the end of terrorism and adventurism.