The chief prosecutor of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (ISCT), Jaafar al-Mousavi, has said there is evidence to suggest that terrorist Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) had a hand in murdering Iraqi citizens.
About 150 MKO members, including the ringleaders Maryam and Mas’oud Rajavis, are currently under arrest warrant, al-Mousavi told the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.
“The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunals will prosecute and put into trial criminals all over the world,” al-Mousavi stated, adding that in case such criminals have left Iraq, their countries of residence will be asked to hand them over to Iraqi courts.
"We have made probes into crimes that the former regime committed with cooperation of various groups, and during the investigations we have collected documents that prove the complicity of Mojahedin-e-Khalq in inhumane actions in southern and northern Iraq in 1991, the so-called Sha baniyyah Revolution,” he noted.
“The crimes fall into two categories, the first is about murder, torture and (illegal) detentions,” he said, adding there are documents that prove the terrorist organization was involved in the murder, torture, and detention of Iraqi national in the Iraqi Kurdistan.
The second category includes the waste of Iraqi national wealth, al-Mousavi said.
The MKO was a complicit in wasting the Iraqi wealth and they even had a share in the Iraqi oil, he explained.
The SICT bases it work on UN Security Council Resolution 1483, he said, explaining that the resolution, which came into force on May 22, 2003, emphasizes that all those who committed crimes in the Baathist regime should be brought to justice, al-Mousavi explained.
The MKO was founded by Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saied Mohsen and Ali-Asghar Badizadegan in Tehran in 1965. It is blamed for carrying several terrorist attacks against Iranian citizens.
The organization transferred its headquarters to Iraq in 1986. The organization received all of its military support and most of its financial assistance from Saddam’s regime until the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Near the end of the 1980-1988 war with Iran, Baghdad armed the group with military equipment and sent it into action against Iranian forces.
The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal is a body established under Iraqi national law to try Iraqi nationals or residents accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or other serious crimes committed between 1968 and 2003. It has organized the trial of Saddam Hussein and other members of his Baath Party regime.
Mehr News Agency – 2007/08/16
