Breaking News: Justice prevails for Iranian Resistance in France

                 

Justice prevailed; collaboration to demonize defeated; and legitimacy of Iranian Resistance proved

 The suppression of Iranian Resistance distracted attentions from real terrorism and offered the best opportunity to the fundamentalists

 Yesterday (Tuesday, September 16), the counterterrorism investigative judge of Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered an end to prosecution of an infamous dossier that had been opened 14 years ago against the Iranian Resistance in a deal with the mullahs’ regime and permanently closed the file.

This dossier that started by the absurd allegation of terrorism and financing terrorism, in the absence of any evidence related to terrorism, was diverted to financial charges such as money laundering and fraud. Now, the French judicial system stipulates that there is no evidence for the financial allegations either. As such, despite pumping of false testimonies and fabricated information, the French judiciary confirmed the falseness of all charges that had been brought against the Iranian Resistance.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, described the decision by the French judiciary as the victory of justice and resistance over collaboration and making deals, a defeat of the demonizing campaign, and an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the resistance against the religious fascism, and said: From the outset, this infamous dossier was the by-product of a disgraceful collaboration with the religious fascism ruling Iran aimed at “destroying” the just and democratic resistance of the Iranian people for toppling the clerical regime that is the godfather of terrorism and fundamentalism in our world today.

She added: On 17 June 2003, by employing the contemptible pretense of terrorism, 1300 police raided the offices of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the houses of families of the martyrs. They resorted to a wave of arrests, destruction of property and residence of the resistance, battering and injuring people and even elderly fathers and mothers, and confiscation of the resistance’s property. This assault resulted in sending to exile many of the refugees and an imposition of heavy judicial controls. Now, the French judicial system acknowledges that the resistance of the PMOI, whether in the form of the National Liberation Army (NLA) or in the PMOI operations inside Iran, has been legitimate and is not considered terrorism.

This raid that had been organized in a visit by at the time French Foreign Minister to Tehran was supported by a gigantic commercial contract between the Iranian regime and France in May 2003. Various organs of the Iranian regime, including the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the mullahs’ embassy worked intimately with the French services to build a dossier and regime’s President bankrolled its tremendous expenses.

However, despite all these measures and the confiscation of all documents in the NCRI Offices and the longtime eavesdropping on the communications of these offices and that of the resistance’s officials, together with the official requests by at the time French officials from other countries for information against the Iranian Resistance, there were no evidence against the Iranian Resistance in this file. To make up for the infamy of the lack of any evidence, seven known agents of the Intelligence Ministry were used as witnesses. They were interrogated in dozens of directed sessions to charge the resistance of being a sect, involved in terrorism and suppression of the Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, money laundering, embezzlements, and torture and murder of its members.

Mrs. Rajavi added: “Utilizing the regime’s agents to testify against the resistance is utterly shameful and is analogous to utilizing the French who collaborated with Hitler’s Gestapo to testify against the French resistance and resistance activists.” She added: “But issuing the order for dropping charges was a devastating and irreparable defeat for the mullahs’ demonizing campaign against the resistance. Once again it was proven that all the regime’s claims against the resistance that were disseminated and promulgated by its various lobbyists and agents throughout the world, particularly in Europe and the US by devoting huge budgets incessantly in the past three decades, are absolute lies and are totally baseless.

President-elect of the Iranian Resistance highlighted some of the consequences and damages of this case including various financial and political restrictions against the resistance, wasting its energies and resources, and providing justification for executions and suppression of supporters of the resistance inside Iran and the residents of Ashraf in Iraq and said: What is even more important is the fact that this case diverted the attentions from the campaign against terrorism. Instead of standing against a regime, which has been engaged in spreading terrorism for the past three decades in the forms of Hezbollah or ISIS in the Middle East and Africa, its opposition, i.e. the National Council of Resistance of Iran has been suppressed and the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) that represents a democratic and tolerant Islam has been nailed downed. The adverse effect of this wrong policy has gone as far as providing the grounds to the fundamentalists to recruit forces from Europe today.

Mrs. Rajavi concluded: A case is now closed but a new case will have to be opened. The real criminals will have to face justice, those who were involved in this dirty deal, those who ordered the arrests and ridiculed the French Justice for their political and economical interests and caused loss of lives.
During June 17 attack 164 people were arrested but they were all released shortly afterwards and 24 were put under prosecution. After a thorough inspection of the NCRI’s offices, where no illegal item were found, the head of the French intelligence agency known as DST admitted at the time to the fact that no weapons were found in the premises but they succeeded in dismantling the organization.

The investigative magistrate, while rejecting the allegation of terrorism against the PMOI (MEK) reiterated: “It should be said that the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the PMOI, and the National Liberation Army of Iran, all form a collective body with the objective of overthrowing the regime ruling Iran.”

He underscored that based on “judicial investigation” the resistance’s methods to achieve this objective have “either been political (like disseminating information, drawing attention, lobbying, utilizing various latitudes)”, or “by using a real army, the National Liberation Army of Iran”, and “or has included military operations inside of Iran, for which the PMOI has claimed responsibility,” and “in the dossier there is no evidence pointing towards any armed operation that has targeted civilians deliberately.” The judge added that what is in the dossier “does not allow that military operations be equated to terrorist acts. In French laws, a military attack that leads to clashes between armed forces, cannot be described as terrorism.”