The Iranian regime, which is behind the botched and failed bomb attack on the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and (PMOI / MEK Iran) has said nothing to contradict what Assadi has himself been threatening.

A Belgian federal court has continued the trial of the four Iranians accused of planning to carry out a bomb attack on the Free Iran Rally by the  People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Villepinte, near Paris, on 30^th June 2018. The main defendant is Assadollah Asadi, an Iranian diplomat-cum-terrorist based until his arrest at the Iranian embassy in Vienna. He has denied all allegations made against him and has claimed that as he has diplomatic immunity, he needn’t bother turning up to the trial, leaving representation to his lawyer. His lawyer, meanwhile, hasn’t actually denied that his client was involved in the bomb attack plan, but has stuck to trying to claim that Assadi cannot be tried because of his diplomatic immunity.

Assadi has even gone to the extent of making veiled threats against Belgian police during questioning, basically implying that if he is tried and convicted, that those ‘looking at the trial’ may decide to take action against the Belgian authorities in some unspecified way. The Iranian regime, which is behind the botched and failed bomb attack on the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and (PMOI / MEK Iran) has said nothing to contradict what Assadi has himself been threatening.

Belgian prosecutors say that Assadi does not have the right to claim diplomatic immunity, not just because he was arrested in Germany, where he has no diplomatic presence, but because both Belgian and Austrian law allow police to arrest him because he has been accused of plotting ‘mass murder.’

The Belgian/Iranian couple who accepted the explosives from Assadi in a pizza restaurant in Luxembourg, Amir Saadouni and Nasimeh Naami, have not denied the rather obvious fact that they were caught with 500g of explosives in the boot of their, car together with a detonator, but that the explosives were only ‘fireworks.’ They were on their way to Paris from Belgium when arrested with an amount of TAPT explosives that Belgian bomb experts say was encapsulated into a ‘very professional’ IED. TAPT has such a reputation for explosive potential that it has been nicknamed the ‘mother of Satan.’

Saadouni and Naami have hardly been able to credibly deny the fact that they were carrying the explosives in order to detonate them at the rally, but have tried to downplay the seriousness of the explosion which could have happened. They have claimed that Assadi was ‘only trying to frighten’ the (PMOI / MEK Iran) and not to actually kill as many rally attendees as possible.

Saadouni and Naami have also tried to plead for their saving from deportation back to Iran. They say that the regime would blame the whole debacle on them and have them executed. This statement at least has the ring of truth about it but seems hardly likely to go down too well in Belgium where TAPT has already been used several times already in terrorist attacks.

The point that the couple was only carrying out the orders of their masters in Tehran, including the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), is likely to be a crucial issue in the whole trial. Saadouni and Naami are very likely to lose their Belgian citizenship, be deported at the end of an 18-year prison sentence to Iran (what prosecutors are asking for) but this still leaves the real perpetrators unpunished in Tehran, including the Supreme leader himself, Ali Khamenei, who must have approved the plan.

Saadouni’s and Naami’s lawyers have acknowledged that the couple has been working for the MOIS for the past 11 years, but have tried to claim that they were ‘victims of manipulation.’ The link between the accomplices of this particular terrorist plot and the regime’s own terrorism ministry is confirmed, just as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and (PMOI / MEK Iran) has been saying all along. Assadi had been known to the couple for 5 years, at which time he had been working for the MOIS based at Iran’s Vienna Embassy. This particular attack was certainly not the first he had been involved in. There is sufficient evidence to link him to an attack against the MEK in Albania, as well.

2018 was a prime year for both protests against the regime in Iran itself, and attacks engineered by the regime against those it blamed for organizing and instigating the protests, the Iranian opposition movement. The attack in Albanian and the Villepinte attack both failed, but are indicative of the determination of the regime to destroy the (PMOI / MEK Iran) and other opposition members. Ali Khamenei was certainly convinced that if it hadn’t been for the (PMOI / MEK Iran), the intensity and strength of the protests against his regime in Iran would not have been so great.

The Iranian regime was becoming to fear its own future and this had led it to extraordinary and desperate tactics, such as initiating a potentially devastating attack on European soil.

The main question that should be answered by the trial’s conclusion is whether the chief protagonists of the crime should go unpunished. Of course, they have not been arrested or officially charged, but the link between the four defendants in Antwerp and the regime in Tehran is so strong that it will be hard for European governments to turn a blind eye and pretend that nothing can be done to make the regime accountable.

The NCRI and its foreign supporters have made it quite clear what sorts of measures could be taken against Tehran. These could include extending sanctions, closing down Iranian diplomatic posts in Europe, and expelling diplomats who could be responsible at any time for further terrorist attacks in Europe.

The Iranian regime is feeling the heat in Iran where its incompetence and brutality have won it no friends amongst its own citizens. A concerted and firm approach by European authorities could just be enough to see the regime toppled and replaced by a democratic alternative.

and People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran – MEK IRAN – YouTube