HCHR_ Participating in a special news interview, Kazem Gharibabadi, the Vice-President for International Affairs of the Judiciary and the Secretary-General of the High Council for Human Rights, provided explanations regarding holding trial session for the crimes of the MKO group and the trial process of the leaders and main members of this terrorist group, whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of innocent people, and the unjust verdict of the Sweden court about Hamid Nouri.
Gharibabadi pointed out that “we have cases, documents and evidence in some judicial authorities on a case-by-case basis about some members of the MKO group and the crimes committed by them. The crimes of some of them have been dealt with, but we had not formed a court to try the whole organization and its main members”. He added: “However, this decision was made last year within the framework of the judicial system and according to the order of the head of the Judiciary, and now the court has been established with seriousness and this case is being investigated and followed up”.
The impunity of the leaders and members of the terrorist group of the MKO must end
Stating that we have a discussion on dealing with impunity within the framework of domestic and international law, Gharibabadi added: “Terrorist crimes and crimes against the national and foreign security of a country committed by the MKOs should not go unpunished. Although late, the establishment of this court was an appropriate action, which was done with the cooperation of all relevant institutions, and therefore we hope to bring justice to the fore by holding this court. If we have access to the MKO members or not, if the main members of the MKO terrorist group are present inside the country or not, and what success and achievements the establishment of this court can have for the Islamic Republic of Iran and what dangers it will bring for the members of the MKO terrorist group, will further be elaborated on.
Regarding the impact of holding this court on the international community and human rights institutions, the Secretary-General of the High Council for Human Rights noted: “The investigation of this case started in 2022 and took a long process of several months, different teams in both the Judiciary and Law Enforcement agencies, military as well as security institutions worked around the clock and collected the necessary documents, which led to the issuance of an indictment by the Tehran Prosecutor's Office on July 9, 2023. This comprehensive and complete indictment has 729 pages and covers all aspects in several chapters. This indictment also has about 6,757 pages of written documents and appendices, as well as about a thousand hours of audio and video documents. Of course, this is not all the documents about the crimes of the MKO terrorist group, this case has 105 accused, too. One of the accused in the organization is a legal entity, and the other 104 accused persons are members of the main staff of this terrorist group, who are considered real persons, however, all the crimes committed by the MKO terrorist group are not limited to these 104 individuals. The case will be open to deal with other crimes of the MKO terrorist group as well as other people, but now the focus is on these 105 people.
5 public defenders have been introduced to the court to defend the rights of the accused
Regarding the possibility of returning these defendants to the country, the Secretary-General noted: “We’ve followed all the principles of fair trial in this case. The first principle is that the accused should be able to defend himself, regardless of who he is, in any place. Therefore, the relevant judicial authority, in published newspapers, informed the accused of the filing of this case, and if they want to hire a lawyer within the legal deadline. The message was also sent to the official bodies and e-mails of the MKO terrorist group. The legal deadline passed and the MKO group did not introduce anyone to defend themselves. However, according to our criminal procedure law, a lawyer must be appointed for the accused and therefore, the court appointed 5 lawyers for them. It is one of our supreme principles that public defender can defend their rights despite the fact that they did not introduce any lawyers of their own.
In response to the question that “how does the public defender want to defend the accused while he does not have access to them”, Gharibabadi stated: “Today, I watched an interview with one of the public defenders who raised good points. According to this interview, the MKO members can send their documents to the public defenders and their documents will definitely be used in the process. Therefore, the appointment of court-appointed attorneys is not fake and a formality.” He added: “If the MKO members themselves did not introduce a lawyer, shouldn't we set up a court to try them? This action should not prevent the execution of justice and the pursuit of the judicial case of the MKO members. At any stage, if the accused want to appoint a lawyer, the public lawyers will leave and the appointed lawyers will come and continue the work”.
The crimes of the MKO group are extensive and are not limited only to Iran
The Vice-President of the Judiciary emphasized: “The crimes committed by the MKO are widespread crimes. From the beginning of the victory of the Islamic revolution, the MKO was not the only terrorist group, we witnessed the formation of several terrorist groups with the special support of the West and the United States inside the Islamic Republic, but the group that carried out the most criminal acts of terrorism was the MKO terrorist group. Because of the deviations that existed in their ideology and way of thinking, they saw the ideas of the Islamic Revolution and the approach of Imam, in contradict with their approach, so that they sought to store and use of weapons. The MKO terrorist group have martyred more than 17 thousand innocent people who were both the officials of the system and women and children and the people of our country. Their actions were not limited to assassinations, they were involved in hijackings, kidnappings, torture and murder, robbery to finance terrorists, bank robberies, spying for the enemy whether they were in Iran or they were sheltered in Iraqi territory. The missile attacks against Iran were generally based on the spied information provided by MKO members.
Gharibabadi reiterated: “A large number of innocent people were martyred due to the information spied by the MKO members. The crimes of this terrorist group are not limited to Iran. In the Shabaniyah intifada in Iraq, more than 100,000 innocent people were killed over the course of several months, and one of the constants reasons for the killing of these people, along with Saddam's forces, were the MKO members. What is interesting is that the Iraqi judicial system filed a case and issued a sentence for 118 of the MKO leaders. We are not the only country that filed a case against the MKOs. We are also pursuing this case within the framework of the Joint Judicial Committee to Counter Terrorism with Iraq.
By issuing a verdict and sending it to the Interpol, the extradition of the MKO members will be implemented
Regarding the enforceability of the verdict of the convicts, the Secretary-General of the HCHR noted: “If the verdict is sent to the Interpol and becomes a directive, then every country should hand over the convicts to the requesting country through Interpol, wherever they are. In Syria, when the ISIS emerged, the MKOs trained those terrorists and fought alongside them against the people and the government of Syria. The crimes of this group are extensive. We have agreements with some countries to extradite criminals, naturally, according to the agreement, those countries must cooperate with Iran and extradite the convicts.
Gharibabadi continued: “MKO members are mainly based in European countries and in Albania, and unfortunately, their center is also based in France”. However, recently, some restrictions were imposed by the Albanian government and sometimes by the French government for them, which of course was due to the information and documentation provided by Iran, and they finally came to the conclusion that the MKOs are dangerous for their security. For sure, any follow-up in foreign and international courts is impossible for us unless we have a court order against the members of the MKO. First of all, a court case should be filed against that terrorist group and their criminal acts, and judgments should be issued through a fair trial process. With this volume of documents and judgments of other courts, it will be very difficult for a country like France and Germany to continue supporting this terrorist group.
The terrorist activities of the MKO group against Iran still tcontinue
Regarding the awareness-raising about the crimes committed by the MKO group at international level and in public opinion, the Secretary-General stated: “The MKOs are a very dangerous organization that committed massive crimes not only inside Iran, but also in our neighboring countries, Syria and Iraq”. They don't even show mercy to their own members, from separating women from their husbands and disintegrating the family system, separating children from families and handing them over to other families in other countries, sterilization, torture, even killing their own members, to other various crimes. We have witnessed that they even threatened the representatives of the European Parliament in strange ways. The European Parliament recently issued a resolution one paragraph of which is dedicated to the actions of the MKOs, stating that the MKOs are a group that resort to murder, intimidation and torture even against their members in dirty ways; or sometimes they bribe and threaten the representatives so that they can benefit from their signatures in their statements.”
Gharibabadi also noted: “The terrorist acts of the MKO group have not ended yet. They introduce themselves as a political group. It is ridiculous that they appear and speak in human rights assemblies under the guise of an apparently democratic face, while we are still witnessing their terrorist activities and crimes. The documents of the terrorist acts of this group representing that they are not a mere political group or a so called human rights group, have been presented to European countries. In Belgium, when we returned Iranian diplomat Mr. Asadi to Iran, in exchange for a Belgian prisoner according to the extradition agreement between the two countries, the MKOs complained against the Belgian government that why they had such an agreement with Iran and threatened the officials of this country. I said to the ambassador of Belgium that when you host a terrorist group, they stand against you and your decisions which are based on the national sovereignty of Belgium, and no doubt that one day they will pull a gun on you and carry out terrorist operations there against you.
Sweden's action in the trial of an innocent Iranian citizen will cost them dearly
In another part of his speech regarding the verdict of the Swedish court regarding Hamid Nouri, the Vice President of the Judiciary stated: “This case was established by MKO terrorist group. When two members of this group were returning from England, they planned for it. It is not a case where only Sweden is the decision-maker, because when we see the history of our relations with Sweden, we did not have such problems. After the Islamic Revolution, we saw the establishment of some terrorist groups in Sweden; some of the extremist groups that actually claim separatism are based in Sweden. Dozens of reasons can be cited for rejecting this court, but one basic reason is that it took more than three years for the Swedish prosecutor to present the criminal case to the court, and this shows that they did not have enough reasons against this Mr Nouri. Sweden turned Hamid Nouri's case into a case against the Islamic Republic of Iran. For whom did Sweden do this? For the MKO terrorist group?”
Gharibabadi emphasized: “We pointed out to the diplomatic authorities of Sweden many times, both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I, and other related officials as well, that why didn't you, who claim human rights, file a case against terrorist groups, but filed a case in support of them? This action of Sweden in the trial of the innocent Iranian citizen will not remain without cost for him. We are determined to put an end to the impunity of the MKOs’ crimes by any means, and terrorists, including the MKO members, should not feel safe in any country.”