French Anti-Terrorist Judges Question 17 Detained MKO Members

June 22, 2003 - 0:0
PARIS -- Seventeen members of the Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) detained in a massive French crackdown, including figurehead leader Maryam Rajavi, were due to be brought before anti-terrorist judges Saturday, legal sources said.

They were among more than 200 people arrested in raids on sites linked to the MKO northwest of Paris since Tuesday, though most have been released without charge.

The 17, whose provisional detention ends Saturday, are expected to be put under formal investigation and kept in custody or placed on parole.

The Paris prosecutor's office said no deportation orders were planned.

They were going to appear before France's top anti-terrorist magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere and two other judges amid heavy security around Paris' main criminal court. A nearby metro stop and one of Paris' top tourists sites, the 13th-century Gothic chapel of Sainte Chapelle, were shut down as a precaution, police said.

Rajavi is the wife of MKO military leader Massoud Rajavi, who was expelled from France in 1986 and is said to be living in Iraq.

His brother Saleh Rajavi is also known to be among the 17, who the prosecutor's office said were all Iranian, without naming the others.

Around 20 people remain in custody following the crackdown, which spurred 10 self-immolation protests in European cities by MKO supporters that left one woman dead in France.

French security officials say the MKO -- designated a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Iran -- intended to make France its centre of operations against Tehran after losing its bases in Iraq following the U.S.-led victory there.

The police swoop, centered around Mujahedeen headquarters in the town of Auvers-sur-Oise, uncovered some four million dollars (euros) in bank notes and large amounts of computer equipment in the raids, police said. No weapons or ammunition were discovered.

A detainee who was released early Saturday, Samad Fathpur-Pakzad, 54, told AFP by telephone from his home near Auvers-sur-Oise that the group was questioned about "communications with Mujahedeen inside Iran and the origin of the group's finances". He said the investigators wanted to know "if attacks inside Iran had been organized from France," which he said was "absolutely not the case."

He also identified three other detainees as top officials in the National Council of Resistance in Iran, an umbrella group dominated by the MKO which sees Maryam Rajavi as its "future president".

He said they were: Seyed Mohadessin, in charge of foreign affairs; the group's spokesman in France Afshin Alavi; and the point man for contacts with French authorities, Majid Taleghani.

Judicial sources meanwhile said two other Iranian men, 47 and 51, were placed under formal investigation overnight for "assisting a suicide" of the woman who died.

They said their case would go before a judge Monday who would seek to determine whether MKO leaders had issued a formal order for the self-immolations.

Sedighieh Mojaveri, 42, died Thursday in a French military hospital the day after she set herself ablaze near the French counter-intelligence services DST, a few hundred metres (yards) from the Eiffel Tower.

Iran has demanded that France hand over the detained Mujahedeen members but the French justice ministry said Friday it had received no extradition request from Tehran.

Police said that six of the detainees had been served with extradition orders to other European countries, where they are resident.

The MKO has been implanted around Paris and other places in Europe for some 20 yearsl.

Several congressmen in the United States pressured France on Friday to release the detainees.