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France
Cracks Down On Iran Opposition Group
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French anti-terrorist police launches an operation at the NCRI headquarters
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PARIS,
June 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - French anti-terrorist
police raided the offices of an Iranian armed opposition group,
People’s Mujahideen, detaining 165 of its members and seizing $1.3
million in American currency.
More
than 1,200 heavy armed and masked officers took part in the dawn
raids, which the Interior Ministry described as one of the biggest
undertaken by the domestic intelligence services in the last 30 years.
Thirteen
locations in the northwestern outskirts of Paris were targeted,
including the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of
Iran (NCRI) - the political umbrella group dominated by the People's
Mujahideen.
Officials
quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP) said that 165 people were
detained and were being questioned in police and intelligence service
offices.
France
Info radio reported that Maryam Rajavi, wife of Mujahedeen leader
Massoud Rajavi, was among the detained.
Born
in Teheran in 1953, Maryam Rajavi was joint leader of the People's
Mujahideen in the late 1980s but resigned after being made
"President-elect" for a future Iranian government by the
NCRI in 1993.
The
$ 1.3 millions - in $100 bills - was found stashed in a villa in
Auvers-Sur-Oise, north of Paris, where the group kept its
headquarters, police told Associated Press.
The
Mujahedeen have been based in France since shortly after the 1979
Islamic revolution that toppled the Iranian monarchy and brought
Ayatollah Khomeini to power.
Its
leader Massoud Rajavi was ousted from France to Iraq in 1986 in an
effort by Paris to improve relations with Iran and help get freedom
for nine French hostages in Lebanon.
He
took refuge in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, where his military wing
organized attacks inside Iran. But last year the organization was put
on a "terrorist" blacklist by both the United States and the
European Union.
Denounced
The
Mujahedeen denounced the French police raids.
Iran's
People's Mujahedeen described as "absolutely preposterous"
the charges that led to Tuesday morning raids.
Spokesman
Ali Safavi, speaking in Nicosia by telephone from London, said
"these allegations are absolutely preposterous."
He
said People's Mujahedeen personnel had been living in France for many
years "and there has been no problem. Wherever they are, they are
absolutely not involved in illegal activities in their host
country."
He
accused France of "trying to curry favor with the (Islamic)
fundamentalist regime in Iran" and said the arrests were part of
a "concerted conspiracy" between the two governments.
"Ironically,
the French had been protecting them (the Mujahedeen) from terrorist
attacks of the Iranian regime" in the past, he said.
On
Monday the Peoples Mujahedeen said two of its members who had lived in
Britain as political refugees for decades were recently arrested in
Syria and handed over to the regime in Tehran.
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