The 16th trial session of the hearing on crimes of members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) was held in Tehran. The session was held at the 11th branch of the criminal court of Tehran province on Tuesday, September 10th. The court brings 104 members of the MEK as well as the group as a legal entity to justice in absentia. The court was presided by Judge Dehqani.
Judge Dehqani told, “The Iranian nation is considered as one of the biggest victims of terrorism, and long before the September 11 incident in the United States, we tried to push the global public opinion and the United Nations towards the fight against terrorism.”
According to the preface of Resolution No. 1617 issued in 2005, all members of the United Nations are required to generally fulfill the requirements contained in Resolution 1373. Based on the resolution UN state members should limit and trace the financial resources of terrorist groups. The judge stated, “Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its legal laws, deals with charges of terrorist acts, including hijacking, burning children, killing women, children, civilians and ordinary people with various explosions and intimidating people.”
Addressing the UN Secretary General, judge Dehqani said: “Today in Tehran, an indictment was sent to one of the criminal branches of the court based on that 104 defendants are being investigated for terrorist charges, which are considered terrorist acts and crimes against humanity according to all legal rules. The expectation of the people of Iran is that the United Nations and the Secretary General and its affiliated members and its reporters are not involved with the accused.”
Amir Molai Balestani, the lawyer of the plaintiffs, submitted a bill to the court in accordance with Article 107 of the Criminal Procedure Law regarding the provision of a criminal demand in order to compensate for the losses caused by the crime.
The president of the court, after consulting with the court advisors, while agreeing the demand requested by the plaintiffs’ lawyer, ordered to seize and identify the property related to the accused of this case in line with Article 107 of the Criminal Procedure Law. “The property of the defendants should be seized,” he ordered.
The defendants’ lawyer asked two family members of victims of the terrorist operation of the MEK against the office of the Islamic Republic Party that killed more than 70 people in June 28th, 1981, to take the stand.
Tayebeh Musavi whose father Kazem Musavi was killed in that terrorist attack told the judge, “My father was the representative of the Imam, the deputy of the Ministry of Education and a teacher, and he was not a military man. He was just one of those who participated in the weekly meetings of the party.”
As the representative of her family, Tayebeh Musavi said, “The court for the June 28th incident took place very late and more than 40 years have passed since this incident. The judicial system should have brought the terrorists to justice long, because in that terror attack, the central officials of the government were targeted. The hall where the explosion took place was not just a hall, but a country, and the heads of a country were there. If something like this happened in another country and one or two of the leaders of that country were assassinated, it would definitely be considered a big incident and it would be dealt with in a special way.”
The lawyer of the plaintiffs, Amir Melai Balestani, stated that regarding the explosion of the party office, some witnessed showed up in the court. He asked the judge to let them appear on the stand. According to Article 330 of the Criminal Procedure Law, the sides of the case had already been notified of the hearing of witness testimony.
The names of some witnesses have been previously defined for this session. The court asked the first witness to take the stand and to take the oath and legal measures to testify. The lawyer invited Abdollah Khalili to give his testimony.
At the time of the incident, Khalili was in charge of the party’s camps and a clerk of the party’s identification department. He explained about the unit called identification in the party. They used to collect information for the security check of those wanted to join the in the party. Kolahi was one of the people they inquired about.
Mohammadreza Kolahi, who worked as an experimental audio equipment technician in the Islamic Republic Party, is accused of taking the bomb with him to the party’s headquarters. For this reason, he was identified as the operator of the explosion. Before the bomb exploded in the party’s headquarters, he quickly got on his motorcycle and ran away under the pretext of buying ice cream for the audience.
“While investigating the people who did not work in the central office we came across the name of Kolahi, all the information ended up in a dead end,” Khalili told the court. “As far as I can remember, he had only one single sheet in his file, which contained his registration details, that he was a student of the University of Science and Technology. The address that was written in that form was the address where his parents lived and there was nothing else like the names of friends and acquaintances and even his identity in the form. The sensitivity that arose on him was due to the importance of the meeting that was being held, because he had the names and contact numbers of all the people who were invited to that meeting.”
Khalili continued testifying about the terrorist attack on the office of the Islamic Republic Party. “Usually, the box of pamphlets was at the end of the entrance of the hall, where it was placed on the chair,” he said. “When I went, I noticed that the box was not there, it was on the table where Ayatollah Beheshti (the party president0 and his secretary were sitting, and I wondered why it was here? It had also taken the front view. When I came out and looked for Kolahi to ask why he left the carton there, they said he went out to buy ice cream. I told a friend to quickly look for him, but he came back and said no.” The hall was exploded a few minutes later.
Further, the judge addressed the representative of the prosecutor and the lawyers of plaintiffs and defendants to ask Abdullah Khalili the questions they might have.
The representative of the prosecutor told the court about the extent of the influence of members of the MEK in government bodies and organizations and parties. “They did most of the work of espionage and gathering information and did not reveal their identity,” he said. “They collected information to assassinate people and later they gave this information to the Baath Party; They had military and logistical cooperation to target the Iranian people and authorities with the Baath party. In the 1980s and 1990s, these goals changed and their more infiltration led to reveal Iran’s nuclear program and provide false information about the alleged nuclear bomb to Western countries. The United States published a report in 2004, then the MEK admitted that they had provided Western countries with this misinformation, to get off the list of terrorist groups. This was in line with their deceitful nature.
The prosecutor’s representative stated, “In June 22nd, 1981, the MEK showed their violent nature. Their first act of terrorism, which they later acknowledged in their meetings with the Baath Party, was the explosion of the Islamic Republic Party building. Before that, there was no talk of influence.”
The judge clarified it to Khalili that the question of the prosecutor’s representative that if he found it possible that Kolahi could be the agent of the MEK. Khalili stated: “In the case of Kolahi, whether from the beginning or the end, we did not think that he would want to do something of this magnitude and be a member of the MEK. Our understanding of his actions and behavior was not enough for someone to entrust such a responsibility to him.”
He continued, “He also had double behavior and had two personalities; Sometimes he made very low-level jokes and did things that were not worthy of an office person, but he was so humble and polite in dealing with party officials that anyone who put these two behaviors together would be suspicious of him. As an influencer, we did not doubt him to this extent and we only knew that this person was not up to the level of his position.”
The prosecutor’s representative asked, “What is your estimate as a person present in the meeting and someone who was responsible at that time? How do you think these explosives entered the hall? Was the box you saw there embedded in it or was it in some other way?”
Khalili said, “No, because we had checked the hall before the meeting and delivered the hall closed, no one but us had opened the door of the hall. There were no explosives before the inspections and other than what Khalee was carrying. It was not inside the hall.”
The prosecutor’s representative addressed the court, “The validation of witnesses’ statements will be done in court, but Mr. Khalili’s statements are consistent with the expert report on the explosion of the party building, and it is mentioned in this report that the amount of explosive was measured very accurately. In the scene, it was observed that the entire roof collapsed and people were killed due to the attack.”
Mohammad Taqi Zardoost was the next witness who took the stand and took an oath. Mohammad Taqi Zardoost said, “There were documents in Kolahi’s personnel file that showed Kolahi’s affiliation with the MEK. In the case, I saw that my brother wrote a letter to Ayatollah Beheshti that Kolahi cooperated with the MEK when he was a student, asking why was Kolahi active in the party. Beheshti signed the letter and referred it to Javadmaleki who was in charge of party organization. Maliki reads this report and unfortunately writes that Kolahi has been accepted into the party due to the work entrusted to him and his activities in the revolutionary issues. My brother had verbally raised the issue of Kolahi to Ayatollah Beheshti too.”
The next session of the court will be held in the morning on September 17th.