Iran prepares to prosecute MKO members for terrorist activities

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: News Websites
29 Jul 2023 15:04

A top Iranian criminal court has issued a call for 104 MKO members, including their leader Maryam Rajavi, to appoint legal representatives to defend their rights during the upcoming trial.

MKO members protest the Albanian police's raid on a terrorist group's camp in Tirana on June 20, 2023. (AFP)

A top Iranian criminal court is gearing up to prosecute over a hundred members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MKO) terrorist group, who are accused of being responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens.

The court has issued a call for 104 MKO members, including their leader Maryam Rajavi, to appoint legal representatives to defend their rights during the upcoming trial.

The MKO has a long history of carrying out terrorist attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, resulting in a tragic toll of almost 12,000 lives out of the approximately 17,000 victims of terrorism in Iran over the past four decades.

Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani expressed the Islamic Republic's strong condemnation of France's initiative to host a recent meeting of the MKO.

France's initiative has led to tensions between the two countries, causing Iran to send strong warnings to France about the political and legal ramifications of supporting and hosting a terrorist organization.

Albania's wake-up call

Back on June 20, the Albanian police raided an MKO camp, owing to the group's involvement in "terror and cyberattacks" against foreign organizations.

Officials seized 150 electronic devices suspected of being used in terrorist activity. During the skirmishes in the Ashraf-3 camp in Tirana's northwest, at least one person was killed and many were injured.

According to reports, one of the MKO members slain in the attack was Abdolvahhab Faraji, a high-profile commander of the terrorist organization. He was believed to be an expert in military engineering operations and was apparently in charge of technical and engineering efforts during an MKO terrorist operation against Iran in July 1988.

At the time, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Spokesperson stated that the anti-Iran terror group would always represent a threat to the security of its host countries and hoped that Albania would "make up for its mistake of hosting this terrorist cult."

It is important to note that while the MKO was previously designated a "terrorist organization" by the European Union, Canada, the United States, and Japan, it was removed from the US list in 2012 and later delisted by the EU.