MARYAM RAJAVI AND TEN MKO MEMBERS JAILED IN PARIS
PARIS 22 June (IPS) Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the co-leader of the Mohajedeen Khalq
Organisation (MKO) and ten of her senior associates at the Organisation were
placed behind bars at the Fleuris Merogis prison on Sunday, accused of
"terrorist activities, association with a terrorist organisation and
financing terrorist operations".
The detention order was issues by the French best-known anti-terrorist judge, Jean Louis Bruguiere and his team, following a marathon 14 hours interrogation that had started at 15.30 hour local time on Saturday to end at around five in the morning of next day.
Out of the 17 men and women under detention since last Tuesday, five of them, including Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin, the head of the National Council of Iranian Resistance (NCIR), the political wing of the MKO in Washington, Mr. Afshin Alavi, NCIR’s Foreign Relations "minister", Mr. Kazem Rajavi, the elder brother of Mr. Mas’ood Rajavi, the leader of the MKO and Mr. Hamid Kowkar, a sympathiser have been freed on condition of not leaving their area of residence.
Mr. Henri Leclerc, a lawyer for Mrs. Rajavi, described the charges as "baseless" and "based on speculations from the French intelligence" and said he had already placed an appeal to the competent court.
As a handcuffed Mrs. Rajavi was escorted to prison by gendarmes, the NCIR, in a statement issued in Paris, observed that Mrs. Rajavi, who was "elected" by the group as Iran’s President (sic) observed that not only she has valid French residence documents, but also enjoyed official protection from the French authorities.
Mrs. Rajavi and her husband, Mas’ood, -- whose whereabouts are not known since the MKO was dismantled in Iraq by the Americans after they attacked Iraq two months ago --, had left France for Baghdad in 1986 to return few weeks ago along other senior members of the Organisation, alarming the French authorities, afraid to see MKO re-organising itself from Paris.
Mrs. Rajavi and more than 165 members and sympathisers of the group, which is outlawed in Iran and placed on the American and the European Union’s list of terrorist organisations, were arrested on 17 June during an early morning mounted by more than 1.200 police and gendarmerie forces raid on the international head quarter of the MKO in the small and calm village of Auvers-Sur-Oise, situated 50 kilometres of Paris.
Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister had justified the rarely seen operation by stating that the MKO was planning terrorist operations against the interests of the Islamic Republic throughout the world.
He said the order to crackdown on the MKO was decided following two years of investigations on the network that was operating against Iran from its bases in Iraq of Saddam Hoseyn.
Informed sources said the United States and some European countries had provided intelligence information and documents to the French authorities concerning the MKO.
Tehran immediately welcomed the French decision that some experts described as "decimating" the Organisation. The US State Department also expressed support at the move, surprising many observers, noting that the Defence Department was considering the removal of the group from the US list of terrorist organisations in order to use it as a pressure lever over the Iranian government – as the former Iraqi dictator used to do --.
During the 17 June raid, the Police discovered and confiscated more than a million US dollars in 100 banknotes, 100.000 Euros, sophisticated communication equipments and computers.
On Sunday, Interior Ministry sources said they had confiscated more than 8 millions dollars in cash found in various offices of the MKO as well in the houses of its high-ranking officials throughout France.
But the French Foreign Affairs Ministry said it was "out of question" to hand over Mrs. Rajavi to Iranian authorities.
The NCIR also called on all MKO members to stop acts of immolation, but wowed to continue protests against the detention of Mrs. Rajavi, as fifty of them are observing a hunger strike while a group of between 200 to 300 hundreds demonstrates peacefully in front of the group’s main compound at Auvers-Sur-Oise. ENDS MKO FRANCE 22603