Iraq’s Finance Minister Baqir al-Zubaidi says the ‘criminal leaders’ of the Mujahidin-e Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI) terrorist group must be put on trial before being expelled from the country.Iraqi people would never forget “the bitter memory of the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, especially a large number of Kurds from north, during the 1991 uprising (Intifada),” al-Zubaidi said on Tuesday.
In a sign of how even the world’s conservative governments increasingly refuse to support the People’s Muhajeddin Organization of Iran (MKO), an international conference sponsored by France’s Nicolas Sarkozy included Iranian victims of what many say is nothing but a terrorist “cult.”
The International Victims of Terrorism Conference in Paris is largely a forum for nations to make others aware of terrorist efforts to subvert their state. This year family members of people killed by the People’s Mojaheddin Organization of Iran, known as the MKO, were invited to testify about the suffering wrought by a group that aims to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Considering that fighting terrorism was the excuse for the US invasion of Iraq, it was expected that terrorist elements, including MKO aka MEK/PMOI forces, would be confronted. But not only was there no confrontation, but they were also supported, and even now that the Iraqi government is determined to expel the MKO from the country, the US and Western countries are trying to hinder the move,” Hejazi added.
… the enemies of the Islamic Republic, particularly the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), are backed by the colonialist powers.The MKO carried out several terrorist acts in Iran with the goal of crippling the Islamic Revolution, but their efforts have always been futile, and “they will take their ambitions to the grave,” he stated. The MKO assassinated Iranian President Mohammad Ali Rajaee and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar in 1981. ..
During the conference the organizers and the attendees stated that they have sent a request to Iraqi government to expel the MKO saying that they launched a campaign to collect one million signatures to be attached to the request.They also reminded the Iraqi policy makers of what they called the crimes committed by MKO/MEK/PMOI against the Iraqi citizens under Saddam regime.
.. a number of Iraqi officials and ordinary people came together in capital Baghdad to talk about the MKO presence in Iraq . he attendees stated that the brutality of the MKO members against the Iraqis in the 1991remind them of the bloody era of the dictator Saddam which lasted more than thirty five years. The organizers said that the Iraqi government has decided to give the MKO members six months time to leave the country. Many others showed frustration toward the intervention of the US …
… Sheikh Ali al-Zahiri, head of the support council of the Iraqi city of Khalis, said on Tuesday that the Diyala Province court has ordered the terrorist group to return 5,000 hectares of land located inside Camp Ashraf, where the MKO terrorists are located, to the Iraqi owners, IRIB reported. The outlawed MKO fled to Iraq in the 1980s, where it enjoyed the support of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf in the northeastern town of Khalis, Diyala. The court ruling also required the MKO to pay compensation to 150 Iraqi families for the terrorist group’s illegitimate use of the land over the past three decades …
n 2008 and during the final days of the George W. Bush administration, the high-ranking officials of the MKO launched a campaign to persuade the US government to remove their name from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The US government rejected the request after investigating the materials and documents submitted by the MKO; however, in July of the same year, a US federal appeals court ordered the US Department of State to reconsider its decision. The State Department announced that it would consider the chances of taking MKO off the list of terrorist organizations…
Several people familiar with MKO’s offers said that the pay scale ranged from $20,000 to $100,000 per speech, plus travel expenses.Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor, said he received $20,000 for an 11-minute speech while a former US official said he was offered $30,000 plus first-class air fare to show up at an MKO-linked event in Europe.The group has also hired Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, a lobbying firm, to persuade members of US Congress to support the terrorist organization’s objectives.