Some of the rioters arrested during Iran’s post-election unrests confessed to their links with the anti-Iran terrorist group Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), and said that they had received trainings in MKO’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq.
"According to the confessions made by those MKO members arrested in recent riots, these people had received trainings in Camp Ashraf to conduct sabotage and terror operations and organized activities (inside Iran)," Deputy Prosecutor-General of Tehran’s public and revolutionary courts Abdulreza Mohebbati said Saturday, addressing the first trial session of the detainees of the recent unrests.
Mohebbati referred to the confessions of one of the MKO members, and said that the detainee became a member of the MKO in 2000 and joined the MKO’s military arm in 2004.
He further said that Reza Khademi, another member of the terrorist group, has confessed that he had left the country illegally and entered Camp Ashraf to receive the required military and information gathering trainings to play a major role in the unrests.
The deputy prosecutor-general of Tehran pointed to Azra al-Saddat Qazi as another MKO member who had been arrested during post-election unrests while throwing Cocktail Molotov at Iranian security forces.
Naseh Faridi is yet another member of the MKO who had established phone and internet contacts with the terrorist group and acted under the cover of a campaign supporter of presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, the judiciary official said.
Mohebbati also pointed to Amir Hossein Fotouhi and Mehdi Shirazi as two other members of the MKO arrested during the post-election unrests, saying that the two were arrested by the Iranian security forces while attending an MKO coordination meeting for stirring unrests.
According to Mohebbati, Hessam Salamat is among other MKO members detained by the security forces for his links with MKO’s main agents in Iran.
The Iranian official added that Mohammad Reza Zamani was another MKO member who had confessed to his established and organized contacts with US and Israeli forces. He was also detained by Iranian forces.
Earlier today, a senior MP said all those detained during the unrests should stand trial for a large number of the arrestees are either criminals or members of such anti-Iran terrorist groups as the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and the monarchists.
The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).
The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.
The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.
The MKO was put on the US terror list in 1997 by the then President, Bill Clinton, but since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the group has been strongly backed by the Washington Neocons, who also argue for the MKO to be taken off the US terror list.
