Mr. Yves Bonnet, former Member of French National Assembly and Director of the French Counterterrorism Agency (DST), has been fined and was ordered to pay compensation in a libel case on February 11, 2010. He was warned that further infringements would attract even more severe punishments.
The defamation case was brought by Mr. Ehsan Naraghi, Mr. Jahangir Shadanlou and Mr. Manouchehr Shalali against Mr. Yves Bonnet who had falsely accused them of being ‘agents of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in a book titled ‘VEVAK: At the service of the Ayatollahs’. Mr. Christohpher Barge of Timaeus publishing company was also ordered to publicise the court’s decision in relation to the book.
In February 2005, a similar defamation case was won by British academic Dr. Ali Ansari. A book written by a leading member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq had described Dr. Ansari as an "ardent apologist" and a "fervent proponent" of the Iranian Government. On receiving Dr. Ansari’s complaint in court, the publisher accepted fully that there was no basis for what had been written about him and immediately offered him an apology.
The court ordered a suitable sum to be paid to an appropriate charity and for Dr. Ansari’s legal costs to be met in full.
This latest decision of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris in the case against Yves Bonnet was in a similar vein. The complainants were under severe pressure by the Mojahedin-e Khalq during the hearing on 17 and 18 December 2009 as several hundred members of the group packed the building in an attempt to intimidate the complainants and witnesses.
The judgement against Yves Bonnet and his publisher is another example of the failure of Rajavi in the attempted demonization of Iranian dissidents and critics of the Mojahedin-e Khalq.
