U.S. Sees No Basis to Prosecute Iranian Opposition 'Terror' Group Being Held in Iraq

THE REACH OF WAR: PEOPLE'S MUJAHEDEEN
U.S. Sees No Basis to Prosecute Iranian Opposition 'Terror' Group Being Held in Iraq
By DOUGLAS JEHL

New York Times
July 27, 2004

A 16-month review by the United States has found no basis to charge members of an Iranian opposition group in Iraq with violations of American law, though the group is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States government, according to senior American officials.

The case of the group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, or Mujahedeen Khalq, whose camp was bombed by the United States military in April 2003, has been watched closely as an important test of the Bush administration's policy toward terrorism and toward Iran.

About 3,800 members of the group are being held in de facto American custody in Camp Ashraf, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. The group remains on the United States terrorist list, though it is not known to have directed any terrorist acts toward the United States for 25 years. But it does stage attacks against Iran, which has demanded that the Iraqi government either prosecute its members or deport them to Iran.

But senior American officials said extensive interviews by officials of the State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had not come up with any basis to bring charges against any members of the group. In a July 21 memorandum, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the deputy commanding general in Iraq, said its members had been designated ''protected persons'' by the United States military, providing them new rights.

The American approach appears to reflect the limits of the government's counterterrorism policy. In the case of the People's Mujahedeen, the United States does not appear to have evidence to charge individual members of the group with acts of terrorism, but it also appears unwilling to surrender its members to their enemy, Iran.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs treatment of civilians in wartime, ''protected persons'' are those who fall under the control of an occupying power or a country involved in the conflict. Among the most significant rights they are granted are protection against collective punishment and against expulsion.

The formal American determination came after members of the group signed an agreement rejecting violence and terrorism, General Miller said in his July 21 letter, addressed to the ''people of Ashraf.'' That agreement ''sends a strong signal and is a powerful first step on the road to your final individual disposition,'' the general's letter said, according to a copy that was made available to The New York Times.

The State Department said Monday that the determination of the status of the group in Iraq did not affect its designation as a terrorist organization. The 3,800 members at Camp Ashraf are still being vetted to determine whether any took part in terrorist activities, said Adam Ereli, the department's deputy spokesman.

But in the memorandum, General Miller struck a warm tone, saying he was ''writing to congratulate each individual living in Camp Ashraf'' on their status. Senior American officials said it that was still possible that some members of the group might be charged with crimes in European countries, but that they did not expect any of them to be charged in American courts.

''A member of a terrorist organization is not necessarily a terrorist,'' a senior American official said. ''To take action against somebody, you have to demonstrate that they have done something.''

Muhammad Mohaddessin, a senior official of the People's Mujahedeen, said in a telephone interview from Paris on Monday that the absence of American charges against members of the group, after months in which they have been held, should raise questions about the organization's terrorist designation.

''I think the fact of the matter is that there is no reason for keeping the Mujahedeen on the terrorism list at all,'' Mr. Mohaddessin said, ''because if these thousands of people who are in Iraq are not terrorists -- when they all have been screened, and no terrorism link has been found -- then really there is no basis whatsoever for accusing the Mujahedeen of being a terrorist organization.''

The American military has kept the members confined to their camp since April 2003, when the organization signed an agreement with United States commanders. Their designation as ''protected persons'' reflects a final determination that they were not involved in acts of belligerence against the American military during the war, American officials said.

The designation would make it all but impossible for members of the group to be extradited to Iran, senior American officials said. In December, the interim Iraqi government ordered that members of the group be expelled, but the move was opposed by the United States, and the directive was never carried out.

Some opponents of Iran, including dozens of members of Congress, have argued that the People's Mujahedeen serves as an effective source of pressure on the Iranian government and should be rewarded, not punished, by the United States.

Nevertheless, Mr. Ereli, the State Department spokesman, said the group ''continues to be a designated foreign terrorist organization,'' a status that was imposed by the Clinton administration.

He said that ''we will continue to treat individuals who can be determined to have been involved in terrorist incidents consistent with the laws that apply.'' But privately, senior American officials noted that it has been more than 25 years since members of the People's Mujahedeen were last believed to have been involved in attacks against the United States, and that most of its recent violent acts were directed at Iran.

In Iran, a government spokesman, Abdollah Ramazanzadeh, said any American move to grant the People's Mujahedeen protected status would undermine the United States' claims to be fighting terrorist groups. ''I hope those who claim they are combating terrorism prove the truth and confront the ones who have committed extensive crimes against the Iranian nation,'' he said.

A senior American official said the United States opposed Iran's request that members of the group be handed over for trial because ''we have real questions about the fairness and transparency of justice'' there.

Until the American invasion of Iraq last year, the People's Mujahedeen maintained armed camps near the Iranian border that included tanks, artillery and other modern weapons. The group had operated inside Iraq since the late 1980's with the support of the Iraqi government.

The American bombing raids on the camps represented the most aggressive approach by the United States in the handling of the group. It was followed by a gentler approach, including prolonged cease-fire negotiations and a cordial relationship between the group and the American military police units that have guarded the camp, preventing members from leaving except under American military escort.

Iran warns US after armed opposition claim protected status

Agence France Presse
July 26, 2004

TEHRAN, July 26 - The Iranian government gave a cautious warning to the United States on Monday after the main Iranian armed opposition group claimed the US-led coalition had granted its militants in Iraq protected status.

"I have no information about the truth of such a thing," government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told reporters, the day after its public enemy number one boasted it was now immune from being handed over.

But even though Ramazanzadeh said the "hypocrites" -- as the People's Mujahedeen are referred to by the Iranian regime -- have "never told the truth", he did warn Washington against making any concessions towards the group.

"The attitude towards the hypocrites in Iraq will show the truth of the claims from anybody who claims to be fighting terrorism globally," he said.

"We hope the ones who accuse others of supporting terrorism act honestly themselves," he added, a clear reference to fresh US allegations of an Iranian link to the Al-Qaeda network.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran said Sunday it had received notification from coalition commanders that People's Mujahedeen fighters confined to camp in Iraq since last year's US-led invasion had been accorded recognition as protected non-combattants under the fourth Geneva Convention.

No confirmation from the US-led coalition was immediately available.

Iran has been pushing for repatriation of the several thousand Mujahedeen fighters under US military guard at Camp Ashraf northeast of Baghdad, and last December Iraq's coalition-installed interim leadership voted unanimously to expel them.

The People's Mujahedeen set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids into Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

The group also participated in Saddam Hussein's crackdown on an uprising by Shiites and Kurds in 1991.

Several thousand Mujahedeen militiamen were disarmed by US forces following the fall of president Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 and barred from undertaking military operations.

Both the United States and the European Union have officially listed the group as a terrorist organisation.

But their fate has been a prickly question for Washington as it prosecutes its worldwide war on terror, with some US officials espousing their possible use against Iran -- lumped into an "axis of evil" by US President George W. Bush -- should "regime change" in Tehran become a formal US policy.

The National Council statement said that the coalition had undertaken to provide continued protection for the Mujahedeen fighters at Camp Ashraf.

While recognition as protected individuals removes controls on the fighters' movement, potentially allowing them to emigrate to third countries, a National Council official said all were likely to stay as they wanted to remain close to Iran.

If the claims are confirmed, such a step would be certain to further damage the already appalling relations between Tehran and Washington.

Furthermore, Iran could dig in on its refusal to extradite senior al-Qaeda operatives it has detained here. Negotiations between Iran and the US on a possible swap of Al-Qaeda and Mujahedeen detainees reportedly broke down last year.

U.S. Grants Protection for Anti-Tehran Group in Iraq

Reuters
Mon Jul 26, 2004

PARIS (Reuters) - The U.S. military has granted "protected status" under the Geneva Convention to members of an exiled Iranian opposition group interned in Iraq, France-based exiles and U.S. officials said on Monday.

The U.S. head of detainee operations in Iraq, Major-General Geoffrey Miller, told the People's Mujahideen Organization (MKO) its members held at a base in eastern Iraq had been recognized as "protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention."

"(This is a) triumph for the Iranian Resistance and the Iranian people," Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said in a statement.

The United States confirmed it gave 3,800 Iranian rebels at the Ashraf base in Iraq protected status because Washington believed they had not been combatants in the war when U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq.

The decision will allow detainees from the group access to the Red Cross and the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR.

But a State Department spokesman said the protected status did not affect the group's designation by Washington as a "terrorist group" and its members in Ashraf were still being vetted to determine what crimes they may have committed.

Iran regards the MKO fighters in Iraq as one of its biggest external threats and wants the group's members handed over.

Diplomats say Tehran offered to exchange al Qaeda prisoners it is holding for MKO leaders but Washington refused the swap.

What to do with the rebels was a "conundrum," a State Department official who asked not to be named, said.

"They probably have a well-founded fear of persecution in Iran. Iraq does not want them. And a lot of countries have not yet agreed to take then -- and wherever they go it has to be voluntary," he said.

Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh said the U.S. move to grant the MKO protected status undermined Washington's claims to be fighting terrorist groups.
"I hope those who claim they are combating terrorism prove the truth and confront the ones who have committed extensive crimes against the Iranian nation," he told a news conference.

In August last year, the United States closed the Washington offices of the NCRI and MKO, also known by its Iranian name Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK).

French intelligence suspected the group of planning to make its Paris base a center from which to launch attacks on Iranian embassies in Europe. The group denies any such ambition. (Additional reporting by Saul Hudson in Washington)

US confirms protected status for Iranian opposition forces in Iraq

Agence France Presse
July 26, 2004
BY MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON, July 26 - The United States on Monday confirmed it had granted protected status to nearly 4,000 members of the People's Mujahedeen, Iran's main armed opposition group, now confined to a military-run camp in Iraq.

The State Department stressed, however, that the move, which drew a warning from Tehran, has no effect on the US "foreign terrorist organization" designation for the group, also known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) or National Council of Resistance of Iran.

"The 3,800 members of the MEK that are in (Camp) Ashraf have been granted protected persons status," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said, adding that the move gives the militants rights under the Geneva Conventions but would not shield them from eventual prosecution on possible terrorism charges.

"This does not relate to their membership in a terrorist organization," Ereli told reporters.

"The MEK continues to be a designated foreign terrorist organization," he said. "We will continue to treat individuals who can be determined to have been involved in terrorist incidents with the MEK consistent with the laws that apply."

Ereli noted that each of the 3,800 militia members were being vetted to determine if they had been involved in terrorist incidents and that those implicated in attacks would be dealt with under applicable laws.

"Protected status does not mean we are protecting these people," he said. "It means we have determined that they were not belligerents in this conflict and we are according them the human rights protections consistent with the Geneva Conventions.

"When individuals are classified as protected persons, it does not in any way attenuate our actions in holding these people to account for activities that they committed as MEK members that were terrorist in nature."

Earlier Monday, Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh gave a cautious warning to the United States against making any concessions towards the group, which Tehran refers to as "hypocrites."

"The attitude towards the hypocrites in Iraq will show the truth of the claims from anybody who claims to be fighting terrorism globally," he said.

Iran has been pushing for repatriation of the several thousand Mujahedeen fighters under US military guard at Camp Ashraf northeast of Baghdad, and last December Iraq's coalition-installed interim leadership voted unanimously to expel them.

But human rights watchdogs have called on the coalition not to hand over the fighters to an uncertain fate at the hands of their archfoes in Tehran.

The People's Mujahedeen set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids into Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

The group also participated in Saddam Hussein's crackdown on an uprising by Shiites and Kurds in 1991.

Several thousand Mujahedeen militiamen were disarmed by US forces following the fall of president Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 and barred from undertaking military operations.

Ereli said the protected status -- announced by the group in Paris on Sunday -- had been accorded to the militants because they had been classified "non-belligerents" during last year's US-led invasion of Iraq.

"It was determined that they were not belligerents, and therefore as non-belligerents fall into this category with respect to the conflict with Iraq," he said.

The fate of the group's members has been a prickly question for Washington as it prosecutes its worldwide war on terror, with some US officials espousing their possible use against Iran -- lumped into an "axis of evil" by US President George W. Bush -- should "regime change" in Tehran become a formal US policy.

Main Iranian armed opposition group granted protected status

The Associated Press
July 26, 2004

WASHINGTON - Fighters from the main Iranian armed opposition group, who are under U.S. military guard in Iraq, have been granted protected status as noncombatants, the State Department said Monday.

Spokesman Adam Ereli said the 3,800 People's Mujahedeen fighters must remain in Camp Ashraf, near Baqubah 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, so they "cannot pose a threat to individuals inside or outside Iraq."

The United States is talking with Iraq and international organizations about sending the fighters back to Iran on a voluntary basis, Ereli said.

For years, during former President Saddam Hussein's tenure, the People's Mujahadeen carried out cross-border raids into Iran. Several thousand were disarmed by U.S. forces after Saddam's overthrow last year by American-led invaders. The mujahadeen were captured and restricted to Camp Ashraf during the invasion.

The granting of protection under the Geneva Conventions means they are no longer considered belligerents in the war between the U.S.-led coalition and Iraq or the anti-U.S. insurgency that has followed it, Ereli said.

But the People's Mujahedeen, which opposes Iran's government, remains on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, the U.S. official said.

Also, Ereli said, investigators are trying to determine whether any of the fighters have engaged in terror.

Still, he said, speaking of the mujahedeen in Iraq, "We have determined that they were not belligerents in this conflict, and we are according them the human rights protections consistent with the Geneva Conventions."

U.S. gives MeK members protected status

United Press International
July 26, 2004

WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) - The U.S. State Department confirmed Monday it had provided an Iranian rebel group labeled a foreign terrorist organization protected status in Iraq.

Nearly 4,000 members of the Mujahedin e Khalq, an Iranian opposition group that operated out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and which is on the State Department's terrorist list, have been granted protected person status by the U.S. military, department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. They are now in custody at Camp Ashraf, Iraq.

"I would note that this means that an individual who enjoys protected person status is entitled to protections of the Geneva Conventions," he said. "There aren't any other connotations to this designation."

He added the designation applied to individuals not groups and insisted the status was related only to their role in the conflict between the coalition and Iraq.

"So it was determined that they were not belligerents and therefore, as non-belligerents, fall into this category with respect to the conflict with Iraq," he said.

He said the MeK continues to be a designated foreign terrorist organization.

US grants protected status to Iranian opposition forces in Iraq

XINHUA NEWS SERVICE
July 26, 2004

WASHINGTON, July 26 - The United States on Monday confirmed that it had given protected status to 3,800 Iranian rebels at the Ashraf base in Iraq.

The move gives the militants rights under the Geneva Conventions but would not shield them from eventual prosecution on possible terrorism charges, said Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman of the State Department at a regular news briefing.

The rebels, belonging to the People's Mujahedeen Organization ( MKO), is Iran's main armed opposition group.

Ereli claimed that the protected status did not affected the group's designation by Washington as a "terrorist group", and its members in Ashraf were still being vetted to determine what crimes they may have committed.

"Protected status does not mean we are protecting these people.. .It means we have determined that they were not belligerents in this conflict and we are according them the human rights protections consistent with the Geneva Conventions," Ereli said.

It was reported the US decision to grant the MKO members protected status will allow them to have access to the Red Cross and the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees.

The People's Mujahedeen Organization set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids into Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

The group also participated in Saddam Hussein's crackdown on an uprising by Shiites and Kurds in 1991.

Several thousand Mujahedeen militiamen were disarmed by US forces following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 and barred from undertaking military operations.

Iran regards the MKO fighters in Iraq as one of its biggest external threats and wants the group's members handed over.

Iran rebels say US-led coalition has granted them protected status in Iraq

Agence France Presse
July 25, 2004

PARIS, July 25 - Iran's main armed opposition group said Sunday that the US-led coalition had granted its militants in Iraq protected status, despite its listing as a terrorist organization by both Washington and its key allies.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran said it had received notification from coalition commanders that People's Mujahedeen fighters who have been confined to camp in Iraq since last year's US-led invasion had been accorded recognition as protected non-combattants under the fourth Geneva Convention.

"It is a very significant step because the Iranian regime has been demanding for the past year the People's Mujahedeen be handed back, which would obviously put their lives in danger," said Farid Sulimani, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the Mujahedeen-dominated National Council.

Iran has been pushing for repatriation of the several thousand Mujahedeen fighters under US military guard at Camp Ashraf northeast of Baghdad, and last December Iraq's coalition-installed interim leadership voted unanimously to expel them.

But human rights watchdogs have called on the coalition not to hand over the fighters to an uncertain fate at the hands of their archfoes in Tehran.

The People's Mujahedeen set up base in Iraq in 1986 and carried out regular cross-border raids into Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war between 1980 and 1988.

Several thousand Mujahedeen militiamen were disarmed by US forces following the fall of president Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 and barred from undertaking military operations.

Their fate has been a prickly question for Washington as it prosecutes its worldwide war on terror, since the group is listed as a terrorist organization by both the US State Department and the European Union.

The National Council statement said that the coalition had undertaken to provide continued protection for the Mujahedeen fighters at Camp Ashraf.

While recognition as protected individuals removes controls on the fighters' movement, potentially allowing them to emigrate to third countries, Sulimani said all were likely to stay as they wanted to remain close to Iran.

Future of Iran opposition group held in Iraq hangs in balance

Financial Times
July 14, 2004
By MOHSEN ASGARI and GARETH SMYTH

TEHRAN - A leading Iraqi politician reassured Iran this week that some 4,000 members of an Iranian opposition group detained by US forces in Iraq as prisoners of war had been recategorised by the new Iraqi government as refugees.

The reclassification could facilitate their repatriation to Iran, where they face an uncertain fate. The return of the Iranian opponents is being sought by Tehran but might be resisted by parts of the US administration.

Abdulaziz Hakim, leader of one of Iraq's leading Shia Muslim parties, said he expected the new Iraqi government to expel the members of the group, known as the Mujahidin-e Khalq (MEK).

However, US treatment of the group, which is listed as a "foreign terrorist organisation" by the State Department, has been shrouded in secrecy.

Iran's leadership wants to try the MEK's leaders for attacks that have killed hundreds of Iranian officials and badly wounded Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then president and now supreme leader, in a 1981 bombing.

When US forces overran the MEK's three camps inside Iraq last year, they impounded the group's Iraqi-supplied heavy weapons - including tanks - and gathered 4,000 members in camp Ashraf, the group's headquarters 100km north of Baghdad.

But US forces allowed MEK to maintain its own discipline and organisation - in stark contrast to conditions at detention centres such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay - sparking speculation that the Pentagon wanted to use the group as a weapon against Iran, or as a bargaining chip to secure al-Qaeda figures held by Tehran.

Iraq's Governing Council voted last year to expel the MEK but was overruled by Paul Bremer, then the chief US administrator.

US authorities in Baghdad recently made no response to repeated Financial Times inquiries about the MEK.

A US official in Washington denied there had ever been plans in the Pentagon to "utilise MEK members in any capacity, especially as a future opposition organisation in Iran".

But a European diplomat told the FT that the Pentagon had "long toyed with the idea of using the MEK in some way against the regime in Iran".

And an adviser to a former Governing Council member suggested that those in Iraq's new government who wanted to expel the MEK had yet to win the battle.

Last year Tehran gave the US names of the senior MEK members, including its leader, Masoud Rajavi, it wants handed over, but it has also encouraged ordinary MEK members to return in peace.

Officials with the MEK in Europe have protested loudly at attempts to return any of the detained to Iran. They insist they would face torture or execution.

Rafat Yazdan-Parast of Nejat, a group established in Tehran by relatives of MEK members in Ashraf, denied this.

She said that 20 people who had returned to Iran after escaping from Ashraf had been debriefed over 24 hours by security officers at a Tehran hotel and then allowed to rejoin their families.

Kamand Ali Azizi, a man of 34 and a former MEK fighter, said he escaped from Ashraf in March: "There were towers with armed MEK guards, and an American military car doing the rounds outside the fence. We climbed the wire and then dropped, and eventually got home via Baghdad."

Mr Azizi said that 1000 of the 4000 in Ashraf were held separately by the MEK because they had expressed a wish to return to Iran.

He said the US troops at Ashraf had no name tags on their uniforms - suggesting they were special forces.