Iran Interlink Demands Indictment of Mojahedin-e Khalq’s Massoud Rajavi
The trial of Saddam Hussein has begun. His toppled regime actively supported international terrorism and Iran’s Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) group – led by Saddam’s closest ally, Massoud Rajavi – was at the top of the terrorist list.
In a press conference on Thursday November 10 – at The Ambassador’s Hotel in Bloomsbury, pressure group Iran Interlink demanded that Massoud Rajavi joins Saddam in being brought to justice.
The conference started with a documentary film showing Massoud Rajavi as he briefed his forces on their mission, along with eye witness accounts of the Mojahedin’s offensives against civilian Kurdish populations in the Spring of 1991. The documentary revealed that the Mojahedin, acting as Saddam’s private army, played a decisive role in the suppression of the 1991 internal uprisings in Iraq, and is responsible for the massacre of many Iraqi Kurds who opposed Saddam.
Following the film, French journalist and researcher on terrorism, Alain Chevalerias, spoke about the terrorist nature of Massoud Rajavi’s Mojahedin organisation. Chevalerias – whose book ‘Burned Alive’ charts the psychological manipulation exerted on MKO members which resulted in several members setting fire to themselves in Paris and London in June 2003 – gave a clear definition of terrorism for the audience and said that groups which attack civilian populations in countries of which the west is critical must be viewed in the same way as the terrorists who target western populations.
Anne Singleton, author of ‘Saddam’s Private Army – how Rajavi changed Iran’s Mojahedin from Armed Revolutionaries into an armed cult’, spoke about the cult nature of the Mojahedin. It is not a political organisation, nor is it a military organisation, it is a cult, said Ms Singleton. Worse than this, it is a terrorist cult. Ms Singleton spent over fifteen years in close proximity to the cult and spent three years full time with them. Ms Singleton pointed out that neither the Mojahedin organisation, nor its leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, have ever publicly condemned Saddam Hussein or his crimes, and have never publicly renounced violence as a means to achieve their aims.
Ms Singleton asserted that the Mojahedin, because it is a cult, can play no part in the political future of Iran. Moreover, now that its forces – with the exception of the people in Camp Ashraf in Iraq – are based in western countries, the Mojahedin no longer presents a threat to Iran. Rather, when its forces set fire to themselves in the streets of western cities, this organisation has now become a problem for the people of those countries.
The speakers were followed by video evidence secretly filmed by Saddam’s own security services depicting the financial, spying and terrorist relationship between the Mojahedin-e Khalq organisation and Saddam’s regime.
The conclusion of the press conference was that not only was each and every military and terrorist operation carried out by the Mojahedin in Iran ordered directly by Saddam Hussein and his intelligence and secret services in Iraq, but that as it faces greater and greater rejection from western governments, the Mojahedin will inevitably return to the side of Saddam Hussein. In this respect, it is possible that they are already participating in the insurgency in Iraq as well as planning terrorist activities in the west.
At the end of the press conference, a Question and Answer session was held with two former members of the Mojahedin.
A three-member team of supporters of Massoud Rajavi and the Mojahedin had been admitted to the conference by Iran Interlink in order to have them watch the films and listen to the speeches. It was hoped they might be in a position to answer some of the journalists questions about the crimes of Massoud Rajavi. During the Q&A session, the team began to rant and admitted they had come with the sole aim of accusing speakers at the meeting of working with the Iranian intelligence ministry.
Massoud Khodabandeh and Karim Haghi, who were holding the Q&A session, restored order so that bona fide journalists were able to get their stories. Unfortunately, the team of Mojahedin supporters, frustrated in their efforts, then began to accuse journalists at the press conference also of being agents of the Iranian intelligence ministry.
The supporters of Massoud Rajavi were unable to answer the central accusation, or to refute or deny the evidence shown at the press conference – that Massoud Rajavi had ordered his own people, Mojahedin forces, to suppress the Kurdish uprising in 1991 as a part of Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime.
Iran Interlink repeats its demand – that Massoud Rajavi be tried alongside Saddam Hussein for war crimes, terrorism and crimes against humanity.
November 12, 2005
