Irna – The terrorist Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), founded in 1965 in Iran, was labeled as the organization of “hypocrites” by the late Imam Khomeini a few years after the victory of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. Why?
The MKO began carrying out terrorist operations from June 20, 1981, with about 12,000 terrorist attacks so far listed in the organization’s history.
The victims of the MKO’s terrorist operations included both officials and ordinary people of 3-89 years of age. The organization has carried out mass terrorist actions, including detonation of a bomb at the office of the Islamic Republic Party that led to the killing of 72 officials, the then Chief Justice of Iran Mohammad Beheshti being among them. The MKO’s terrorist operations also included bombing the offices of the President and Prime Minister of Iran in 1981 and late assassination of high-ranking military commanders.
The members of the organization relocated to Iraq and its ringleader Masoud Rajavi met with the then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein when Iran was fighting a harsh war to push back Iraqi army from its seized territories in southwest of the country. The meeting marked the beginning of the cooperation between the Iraqi regime and the MKO in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.
Conspiracies and crimes committed by the MKO have been carved in the memory of the Iranian people so deep that the group is hated by all Iranians from all political ideas, including the opposition.
Though aware of their criminal and terrorist dark history, the former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently attended the MKO’s headquarters in Albania and met with its chief Maryam Rajavi, stating that he saw himself as one of them.
The MKO has a history of terrorist attacks, horrific murders like burning, decapitation, dismemberment, and many other brutal crimes, a large part of which has been reported in the organization’s official publication entitled “Mujahed”.
Here is a brief list of the terrorist MKO’s crimes:
* 1988 killings
The MKO assassinated 1,503 people in 1988.
* 1983-1984 killings
The MKO assassinated 4,583 civilians from April of 1983 until March of 1984 in Tehran, Shiraz, Ahwaz, Qom, Esfahan, Mazandaran, Hamedan, Gilan, Semnan, East Azarbaijan and Korderstan provinces of Iran.
* killing civilians in Tehran
The MKO detonated a bomb in February 22, 1982 in Eshratabad square in Tehran which killed 11 people and wounded 25 others.
In October 1, 1982, another bomb exploded near a tavern close to the building of Iran’s communications organization. 64 civilian died in the attack.
* Crimes against Iraqi Shias and Kurds
The MKO’s terrorist operations didn’t only target Iranian people and officials, but they also killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shias during their presence in Iraq.
* Europe and the US ignoring MKO’s terrorist acts
During MKO member’s presence in Europe in the past three decades, they have orchestrated sabotage acts against Iranian embassies and Europeans. Some members of the organization were detained last year on drug smuggling, human trafficking and money laundering charges. The French police interrogated 17 members of the group, including Maryam Rajavi, in 2003 on suspicion of conspiracy to commit crime in relations with a terrorist operation.
In 2008, some members were detained in Switzerland and France on money laundering charges. Two other members were also arrested in 2008 in Belgium, but all these were overlook on political basis.
The US State Department delisted the MKO in 2012 when Hilary Clinton was leading Foggy Bottom, while the organization was responsible for killing several American citizens. The European Union, too, delisted it in 2009.
* Hamid Nouri trial and MKO claims
Hamid Nouri is a veteran of Iran’s Judiciary. He was detained on arrival at airport in Stockholm, Sweden, based on the claim that he had a role in execution of some members of the MKO in 1988 in Iran.
He was a staffer of Iran’s prisons organization at the time, but the Swedish judiciary has held about 100 trial sessions for him.
Iran’s Judiciary spokesman Zabihollah Khodaian has said that the lawsuit against Nouri is politically motivated and cannot be called judicial. The Swedish Judiciary hasn’t observed international standards in Nouri’s trial.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said during a conversation with his Swedish counterpart that the trial was illegal. He expressed regret that a terrorist grouplet with a history of crimes against Iranian and even Iraqi people has taken control of artificial machination on the process in Sweden.
Iran has said that Sweden was trying an Iranian-national named Hamid Nouri based on the claims made by the most criminal group in Iran’s History, while there was no considerable evidence except the testimonies of the members of that group.
Nouri was detained in 2019 and immediately moved to solitary. He wasn’t allowed to have contact with his family for four months, which was against all international rules. His public defendants were accused of avoiding honest cooperation with him.
While Nouri suffers from weak sight, he has been deprived of the right to be treated by a physician or to use glasses.
It’s not surprising that the local Swedish media have tagged the legal procedure as “strange trial” which has begun by a kidnap-like operation by the MKO and has moved forward with fake proofs.
The Swedish attorney has requested a life imprisonment sentence for Nouri, invoking the testimony of the members of the terrorism group, while Nouri has rejected all charges and described them as being the result of conspiracy between the MKO and some anti-Islamic Revolution figures residing in Sweden.
