Posted on 06/21/2002 10:59:21 PM PDT by TheOtherOne
Federal Judge in Los Angeles Dismisses Terrorism Fund-Raising Case Against Seven Iranians
Published: Jun 22, 2002
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U.S. District Court Judge Robert Takasugi said that unconstitutional measures were used to put the case together.
In throwing out the 59-count indictment, Takasugi wrote that the government's system for designating a group as a terrorist organization violated the defendants' rights to due process. The designation thus cannot be used in the criminal prosecution, the judge said.
Prosecutors said they haven't decided whether to appeal. "We are considering all of our options," said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.
The case stemmed from a March 2001 indictment against Roya Rahmani, Mustafa Ahmady, Hossein Afshari, Alireza Mohammadmoradi, Mohammad Omidvar, Navid Taj and Hassan Rezaie.
The defendants allegedly showed travelers at Los Angeles International Airport photographs of starving children and alleged atrocities by the government of Iran in soliciting money for humanitarian purposes.
The government contended the money was used to fund terrorist actions, including the purchase of weapons, for the armed wing of a group called Mujahedin-E Khalq, which is based in Iraq and seeks to overthrow Iran's Islamic government.
"These people had nothing to do with terrorism," said Richard Steingard, Ahmady's lawyer.
AP-ES-06-22-02 0122EDT
If and I say again "IF", (knowning California Judges) this is true and the case is upheld, is the reason why we need to follow US Law and the Constitution to the "LETTER". Otherwise these terrorist and their supporters will beat us every step of the way.
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Originally formed in the 1960s as an armed Islamic opposition movement against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the MKO fought in the guerrilla operations that forced his overthrow. However due to its radical socialist ideology the organization was cut out of the power structure built by the ayatollahs in the wake of the revolution. The group turned against the new government and continues to wage an armed struggle against the Iranian state from Iraq, which provides the group with financial and logistical support and military equipment. The MKO remains the most powerful opponent of the Islamic Republic, attacking targets in Iran and assassinating Iranian officials. It is generally believed to have 15 to 20 bases in Iraq. |
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Formed in the 1960s by the college-educated children of Iranian merchants, the MKO sought to counter what it perceived as excessive Western influence in the Shah's regime. The MKO's ideology mixes Marxism and Islam. It has developed into the largest and most active armed Iranian dissident group. Its history is studded with anti-Western activity, and, most recently, attacks on the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad.
In the 1980s the MKO's leaders were forced by Iranian security forces to flee to France. Most resettled in Iraq by 1987. In the mid-1980s their terrorist operations inside Iran were carried on at a lower level than in the 1970s. However, in recent years the organization has claimed credit for a number of operations in Iran.
The organization now has several thousand members based in Iraq with an extensive overseas support structure. Beyond support from Iraq, the MKO uses front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities. Most of the fighters are organized in the MKO's National Liberation Army (NLA).
Description The MEK philosophy mixes Marxism and Islam. Formed in the 1960s, the organization was expelled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and its primary support now comes from the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Its history is studded with anti-Western attacks as well as terrorist attacks on the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad. The MEK now advocates a secular Iranian regime.
Activities
Worldwide campaign against the Iranian Government stresses propaganda and occasionally uses terrorist violence. During the 1970s the MEK killed several US military personnel and US civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. It supported the takeover in 1979 of the US Embassy in Tehran. In 1981 the MEK planted bombs in the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Premier’s office, killing some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. In 1991, it assisted the overnment of Iraq in suppressing the Shia and Kurdish uprisings in northern and southern Iraq. Since then, the MEK has continued to perform internal security services for the Government of Iraq. In April 1992, it conducted attacks on Iranian Embassies in 13 different countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. In recent years the MEK has targeted key military officers and assassinated the deputy chief of the Armed Forces General Staff in April 1999. In April 2000, the MEK attempted to assassinate the commander of the Nasr Headquarters—the interagency board responsible for coordinating policies on Iraq. The normal pace of anti-Iranian operations increased during the "Operation Great Bahman" in February 2000, when the group launched a dozen attacks against Iran. In 2000 and 2001, the MEK was involved regularly in mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids on Iranian military and law enforcement units and government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border. Since the end of the Iran-Iraq War the tactics along the border have garnered few military gains and have become commonplace. MEK insurgent activities in Tehran constitute the biggest security concern for the Iranian leadership. In February 2000, for example, the MEK attacked the leadership complex in Tehran that houses the offices of the Supreme Leader and President.
Strength
Several thousand fighters located on bases scattered throughout Iraq and armed with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery. The MEK also has an overseas support structure. Most of the fighters are organized in the MEK’s National Liberation Army (NLA).
Location/Area of Operation
In the 1980s the MEK’s leaders were forced by Iranian security forces to flee to France. Since resettling in Iraq in 1987, the group has conducted internal security operations in support of the Government of Iraq. In the mid-1980s the group did not mount terrorist operations in Iran at a level similar to its activities in the 1970s, but by the 1990s the MEK had claimed credit for an increasing number of operations in Iran.
External Aid
Beyond support from Iraq, the MEK uses front organizations to solicit contributions from expatriate Iranian communities.
(Los Angeles, CA) - The FBI arrested 7 members of the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) at Los Angeles International airport on Feb. 28, on charges of illegal fund-raising for a terrorist organization. The PMOI, also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), was using a fake human rights organization as a front for funding military activities in Iraq. According to FBI witnesses inside the fund-raising network, all the money raised for unsuspecting travelers and from Iranian-Americans was shipped to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to buy military equipment for the group's National Liberal Army, based in Iraq.
Visitors to LAX have long been familiar with the Mujahedin's fund-raising activities. Iranians, mostly women wearing Islamic Republic-style head scarves, approach unsuspecting travelers in pairs and claim they are raising money to help Iranian children and victims of torture, then spread out glossy books with graphic pictures of torture victims.
In a 120 page affidavit, FBI Special Agent Christopher E. Castillo detailed his contacts with a confidential informant who had been lured into the MEK fund-raising scheme. The informant recorded numerous conversations with the ring-leader, identified by the FBI as 39-year old Tahmineh Tahamtan, in which she detailed how moneys were raised from travelers and from Iranian-Americans.
The informant accompanied Tahamtan and other members of the cell on trips around the Los Angeles and Orange County areas to solicit large donations from Iranian-Americans who sympathized with the MEK, according to the affidavit. The FBI seized training materials for the airport fund-raisers, as well as motivational videos that portrayed the activities of the self-styled "National Liberation Army" in Iraq.
The three-year FBI investigation was triggered by a Jun 12, 1997 cable from the FBI Legal Attaché in Bonn, Germany to the Los Angeles field office, "indicating that the German Federal Criminal Police (BKA) were conducting a money laundering investigation of MEK members involved in fundraising," the affidavit states. "The BKA uncovered large sums of money being sent to Germany from various individuals in the U.S., some of which were in the Los Angeles area."
At about the same time, the affidavit states, the local CBS affiliate in Los Angeles aired an investigative news report on the alleged illegal fund-raising activities, that included footage of known MEK operatives working travelers at LAX. The investigation kicked into high gear once the State Department officially designated the MEK and its affiliates as terrorist organizations in October 1997.
In February 1998, the affidavit states that the FBI seized banking records from a Bank of America account belonging to the Committee for Human Rights in Iran (CHR), a front organization used by the MEK to disguise its fund-raising activities on behalf of the group's military wing in Iraq.
The Los Angeles-based CHR was registered as a non-profit educational group that provided "financial assistance for refugees... [and] to victims of persecution currently residing in the United States." The affidavit states, to the contrary, that the CHR was used as a front for collecting money that was transferred out of the country to bank accounts used by the MEK for its military activities.
Three corporate officers listed by the CHR on its tax returns - Fahimeh Azarani, Majid Lashkari, and Eskandar Eskancari - were not arrested but were cited repeatedly in the affidavit
Lashkari, who gave his employer as Lothar Import of Ventura, California, and Azarani rented apartments on behalf of the MEK which were used as its "kanoon," or cell headquarters.
Those arrested were identified as Tahmineh Tahamtan, Mustafa Ahmady, Hossein Afshari, Ali Reza Moradi, Hassan Rezai, Najaf Eshkoftegi, and Mohammad Omidvar, all of Los Angeles.
At one point, Tahamtan drove to Orange, California to solicit a $12,000 donation from Omidvar, identified as a "long time financial supporter of the MEK and the NLA.". In a tape-recorded conversation on the premises of his business, Prestige Jewelry, Tahamtan also pressed him to lean on other MEK supporters to make large donations. Omidvar joked: "Kazem Rajavi, may God forgive him, said, You give one finger of yours to the Mujahedin and they will take your shoulder off."
The affidavit also detailed harsh anti-American comments made by the MEK's foreign affairs spokesman, Mohammad Mohadesin, in a conference call from Iraq with cell members on March 26, 2000. Mohadesin is frequently portrayed in the press as pro-American and pro-Western, but in talking with MEK supporters accused the United States of giving satellite surveillance footage of the group's bases in Iraq to the Iranian government.
MEK opposition to U.S. policy on Iraq appeared at several places in the 120 page affidavit, but most forcefully at the end, suggesting that the FBI may have chosen to act to prevent imminent terrorist acts in the United States.
Within hours of the Feb. 16 U.S.-British air strikes against Iraq, two of the arrested MEK members "talked about retaliation against the U.S. from Iraqi terrorists who they indicated were most likely already in the U.S.," the affidavit states.
An April 30, 1998 Fact sheet on the MEK distributed by the FBI to all FBI field offices around the United States detailed the group's anti-American activities. "At the time the organization was founded, the goal was to overthrow the monarchist rule of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi," the affidavit states. "During the struggle to overthrow the Shah of Iran as well as after the Shah's overthrow, the MEK publicly claimed responsibility for acts of terrorism against U.S. citizens, U.S. interests and other acts of terrorism." The affidavit cites the assassination of U.S. military officers in Iran, and noted that the group took part in the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979, along with other pro-Khomeini forces.
Source:
The Foundation for Democracy in Iran is a private, non-profit corporation registered in the State of Maryland. Contact: Kenneth R. Timmerman, Executive Director (exec@iran.org). FDI materials are available free-of-charge via the Internet at http://www.iran.org/.
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