Baroness Emma Nicholson said in an exclusive interview with Habilian Association, that the MKO leadership does not allow these individuals to travel to Iran where they will not be prosecuted and their own families await them.
Referring to the expulsion of MKO members from Iraq, vice president of the EU Committee on Foreign Affairs added, “Western European states are not at all wishful of receiving them because of their recent past history. Albania has agreed to take several hundred in theory, but in practice has only accepted seventy two.”
Despite the repeated requests made by the UN Secretary General, just two European countries, Albania and Germany, offered asylum to members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq group. In late March, Albania offered to grant asylum to 210 MKO members in Iraq. But, the group’s spokesperson has immediately turned down the offer. Instead, he asked for the resettlement of all the members in the US or their relocation back to Camp Ashraf, their former military headquarters.
However, after some two months, 14 members of the terrorist group departed Iraq for Albania as the first group followed by the second and third groups which brought the total number of the group members in the southeastern European country to 71.
Germany has also offered asylum to 100 members of the terrorist group, but so far only a group of 7 individuals arrived in this country.