RELEASE OF MRS. MARYAM RAJAVI STIRS POLEMIC IN FRANCE
PARIS, 4 July. (IPS) A polemic is developing in France over the decision of a Paris Appeals Court on Wednesday to set free Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the co-leader of the Mojahedeen Khalq Organisation (MKO) and ten of the group’s high-ranking members on a 80.000 Euros (92.000 USA Dollars) bail each.
The 51 years-old Mrs. Rajavi, who had been "elected" by the
National Council of Iranian Resistance (NCIR), the political arm of the MKO as
future president of Iran left the Fleury Merogis prison near Paris Thursday to a
"triumphant" return to the international head quarters of the group in
the dormant city of Auvers-Sur-Oise, situated 50 kilometres from the French
Capital.
"The Appeals Court decision angered the Direction de Surveillance du Territoire (DST, or French internal security agency), where investigators have the feeling that two years of their investigations have been ruined", said the influential daily "Le Monde", quoting police sources.
The Police, following an early morning raid on 17 June on the group’s international centre in Auvers-Sur-Oise by more than 1.300 French Police and Gendarmerie elite units, had arrested Mrs. Rajavi and more than 160 other officials and members of the MKO and confiscated "highly advanced" computers and transmission equipments as well as more than 8 millions US Dollars and 150.000 Euros in cash.
Justifying the spectacular raid on the MKO, Mr, decided by Mr. Jean Louis Bruguiere, a famous French anti-terrorist Judge and his team, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister had accused the MKO of "association with criminals in connection with a terrorist enterprise, funding terrorist operations and preparing terrorist operations against foreign interests from the French soil".
The group denied all charges, as five young members of the Organisation sat themselves on fire in Paris, London, Rome and Berne, leading to two of them dying in hospitals, while 50 others were on hunger strike.
As Ms. Rajavi, welcomed by 700 cheering and dancing supporters, accused the French authorities and police with "shameful bargaining with the mollah’s regime in Tehran", an official at the French Police Union bitterly regretted her conditional release, saying that the decision gives them "a taste of bitterness".
"They (investigators) planned to continue their investigations of the Mojahedeens both at home and abroad, completing what they had gathered in the past two years", le Monde quoted Mr. Dominique Aschipon, the Secretary of the National Police Officer’s Union.
For his part, Mr. Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, DST’s Director explained that the temporary release of the Mojahedeen’s top leaders does not change anything as their status is concerned.
"The magistrates who ordered the release of Mrs. Rajavi and other members of the Organisation does not contest the charges against them", he told the daily.
As the opposition criticised the government for the police action of 17 July, Mr. Sarkozy repeated the charges of terrorist activities by the MKO, which is on both the US and the EU’s list of terrorist organisations.
"This is an operation that not make France, the right to political exile and the Police any glory", pointed out Mr. Francois Holland, the First Secretary of the Socialist Party, France’s largest opposition party, calling on the government to provide more information on the subject.
The MKO, the only armed group opposed to the present Mullahrchy, transferred its operations against Iran from Paris to Baghdad on 1986, following meetings between Mr. Mas’oud Rajavi, the organisation’s leader, and Mr. Tareq Aziz, Iraq’s then Foreign Minister, receiving large sums of money, army training and material and political support from the now toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hoseyn.
On their advance towards Baghdad, American forces bombed MKO’s bases and occupied them afterward, disarming all the group’s armed men and women and placing them in one camp, closely watched over. ENDS MKO FRANCE 4703