On 10th May, judges in the court of Appeal in Antwerp, Belgium, gave their final ruling on the appeal by three Iranian agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), on their attempt to bomb the huge annual rally of the NCRI democratic Iranian opposition at Villepinte near Paris in June 2018. It was significant that not only were their appeals rejected, but their sentences were increased. Amir Sadouni and Nasimeh Naamiwere each given 18 years terms of imprisonment, while Mehdad Arefani’s sentence was extended to 17 years. In addition, all three co-conspirators of the terrorist diplomat Assadollah Assadi, had their Belgian passports confiscated and their citizenship annulled. They will be deported back to Iran when their jail terms are completed.
I was present at the June 2018 gathering in Villepinte and was a plaintiff in the trial of Assadollah Assadi, the Iranian diplomat from their embassy in Vienna and his three co-conspirators. Throughout history diplomats, as the representatives of sovereign states, have enjoyed a distinct status. Under the terms of the Vienna Convention, diplomats enjoy special privileges. Assadi violated each of the core principles of diplomacy in a way that has sent shockwaves across the civilized world. He was a known agent of the MOIS and clearly was the key operative in the attempt to cause death and destruction at the large gathering of supporters of the Iranian NCRI opposition at Villepinte.
Thanks to a combined operation by the German, French and Belgian intelligence services, Assadi and his three co-conspirators were arrested in June 2018 and were tried on charges of terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder. They were all found guilty of terrorism and sentenced. Assadi’s three co-conspirators appealed against their sentences. Assadi, who was sentenced to 20 years, did not appeal, a clear admission of guilt. Had the bomb plot succeeded, dozens, if not hundreds of innocent people, perhaps including myself, would have been killed or seriously injured.
What is also abundantly clear is that Assadi was acting under orders. A bomb attack, of this magnitude, could only have been validated by the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and by its president at that time, Hassan Rouhani. The Foreign Minister in charge of all diplomatic staff was at that time Mohammad Javad Zarif. He must have been a key party to the terrorist plot, along with the minister of intelligence & security in 2018, Mahmoud Alavi, and the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and their extra-territorial terrorist offshoot the Quds Force. All should be indicted for acts of terror.
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The terrorists who were prepared to carry out this murderous atrocity faced European justice and were sentenced accordingly. But their trial and appeal hearings cannot simply draw a line under this heinous offense. The patrons of the crime, who clearly occupied the most senior positions in the government of Iran in 2018, must also be indicted and held to account for commanding and abetting this act of wanton terror. It must be recognised that Assadi’s three co-conspirators had each registered in the EU as political refugees and had then sought and achieved citizenship in Belgium. This is standard practice by the MOIS, so that it can hide its terrorist agents in plain sight. When Assadi was arrested the German police found a notebook in his possession which contained a network of Iranian agents scattered across the EU. This list should now be made public and the MOIS spies and terrorists identified and driven from Europe. The EU must stop kow-towing to this terrorist regime and expel their spies, agents and so-called diplomats once and for all.
The judgment in this appeal case also has a clear relevance today, when the Biden administration, aided, abetted and encouraged by the EU’s senior appeaser and top diplomat Josep Borrell, is seeking to reinstate the defunct and moribund JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran. Talks on reviving the deal have stalled due to demands by the theocratic regime that the IRGC should be removed from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) blacklist. As this case has demonstrated, the IRGC is the Iranian regime’s tool of terrorism abroad and repression at home.
The IRGC is an instrument of terror that safeguards the religious dictatorship in Iran. Removing the IRGC from the terrorist blacklist and indeed reviving the deeply flawed nuclear deal would be a catastrophic mistake. The mullahs use the JCPOA as a cover for their frenzied campaign to demonize and purge the main, legitimate democratic opposition to their repressive regime, the PMOI/MEK. Today’s judgment in Antwerp has shown that they have failed. The Iranian regime’s terrorists will be caught and will face justice in Western courts.
As Vladimir Putin has proved, appeasement has no place or value when dealing with tyrannical dictators. Let the judgment of the court in Antwerp send a message to Khamenei and to his criminal president Ebrahim Raisi, the butcher of Tehran. Your days are numbered. You too will face Western justice.
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