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Iran Focus
 London, Nov. 10 – Iran’s notorious secret police, the Ministry of
Intelligence and Security (MOIS), is expanding its operations in Britain,
an Iranian opposition figure said on Thursday.
Dowlat Nowrouzi, who
represents the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Britain, told Iran Focus that over the past
several years the MOIS had developed several “cells” in Britain
whose main targets were Iranian opposition activists.
“The Intelligence Ministry runs a two-pronged strategy in dealing with the
Iranian opposition; On the one hand, it has a policy of assassinating
leading figures in the Iranian opposition; but it also runs a very
sophisticated and coordinated demonisation
campaign targeting the opposition [Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK)]”, she said.
The latter, Nowrouzi insisted, was designed to
discredit the opposition movement as the viable alternative to the Iranian
regime thus limiting international support for those struggling against
Tehran and boosting support for the theocratic regime.
Nowrouzi, a U.S.-educated engineer who has
garnered much support for the Iranian opposition among British politicians,
identified two top MOIS cells in the UK
as the husband-and-wife team of Iranian-born Massoud
Khodabandeh and British-born Anne Singleton whom
she said were in contact with Iranian intelligence officials in Tehran carrying out
the orders of MOIS chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ezhei.
A small look into the backgrounds of the Khodabandeh
and Singleton reveals what Nowrouzi termed their
“true sinister side”.
On Wednesday, former Member of Parliament Win Griffiths announced in a
statement that while he was on a humanitarian mission in Tehran’s Evin
Prison last summer, he had seen Singleton walking around freely in the
notorious prison, which had gained infamy as the place where thousands of
opposition activists had been tortured or executed over the past 27 years.
Singleton has admitted to travelling to Tehran on several
other occasions, though Nowrouzi contends she had
made the trips to be briefed by senior MOIS officials on new methods to
effectively demonise the MeK.
Singleton along with her husband, a former MeK
member, run a website called Iran-Interlink, generally viewed by Iranian
exiles as a heavy propaganda organ aimed at demonising
the group.
Massoud Khodabandeh has
also been implicated as a veteran operative of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence
and Security. According to a witness statement filed with British Courts on
12 November 2002, by his brother Ebrahim Khodabandeh, Massoud Khodabandeh was recruited by the MOIS in the mid-1990s.
There are allegations that he had repeatedly travelled
to Tehran and East Asia
for face-to-face briefings by MOIS officials on how to tackle the MeK.
Iran-Interlink had organised a parliamentary
press conference against the MeK and its
leadership this morning, which was cancelled due to complaints by several
MPs and human rights activists. The conference lost its parliamentary
status and was instead held this afternoon at a hotel in central London.
“I think this ultimately turned out to be a disaster by the MOIS agents in Britain. Of
the half dozen people that turned up half turned out to be Iranian exiles
that supported the [MeK] cause”, Nowrouzi said.
“I think it came as a shock to Khodabandeh and
Singleton, who weren’t expecting to be confronted with embarrassing
questions such as ‘since when have you been an MOIS agent’ and ‘how much
does MOIS pay you and is it legal’”, she added.
Another blow to the Khodabandeh-Singleton duo
came when Baroness Emma Nicholson who had registered the original session
in her name failed to turn up at the conference, leaving the pair
empty-handed in claiming political legitimacy.
Further political embarrassment for the conference organisers
came when Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, Chair of the Labour
Peers in the House of Lords and the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on
Iran Freedom, issued a statement denouncing the motives of the conference. “It
is incredible that those using terror at home, sponsoring and inciting it
abroad should think anyone sensible in London wants to listen to them”, the
statement said.
“Their wild allegations about the [MeK] show the
success of the Iranian Resistance in exposing the mullahs’ nuclear
deception, their aid to those killing British troops in Iraq and
their escalating abuse of human right”, it added.
Nowrouzi warned of an increasing use of British
soil by MOIS entering from European countries such as Holland.
One of the speakers at the conference was Karim Haqi, who has had a history of involvement with the
MOIS in Holland.
In February 2002, Dutch security services warned Haqi
over his links to the MOIS and for being on the payroll of the Iranian
secret services involved in a disinformation campaign against the MeK.
Nowrouzi claimed their existed “irrefutable
evidence” that Haqi had travelled
frequently to Asian countries to meet with MOIS handlers and receive money
and instructions for his operations in Europe.
Another MOIS agent at the conference was French-born Alain Chevalérias, according to Nowrouzi.
According to Iranian exiles, Chevalérias travelled to Tehran
on several occasions at the expense of an MOIS front organisation
called House of Labour.
House of Labour was set up and is operated by Ali
Rabei, the former secretary of Iran’s
Supreme National Security Council and a former MOIS deputy director.
Nowrouzi said that British security agencies had
an obligation to prevent the MOIS from infiltrating British soil,
cautioning that Tehran usually preceded the
assassination of Iranian exiles in Europe
with activities by its undercover operatives.
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