Israel, MEK and state sponsor of Terror groups
(aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)
.
... is this not definitive proof that Israel is, by definition, a so-called state sponsor of Terrorism? Leaving everything else aside, if Israel, as NBC reports, has “financed, trained and armed” a group officially designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, isn’t that the definitive act of how one becomes an official “state sponsor of Terrorism”? Amazingly, as Daniel Larison notes, one of the people who most vocally attacked me for labeling the murder of Iranian scientists as “Terrorism” and for generally arguing that Terrorism is a meaningless, cynically applied term ...
The Life of Camp Ashraf,
Mojahedin-e Khalq Victims of Many Masters
Glenn Greenwald, Salon, February 11 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/10/israel_mek_
and_state_sponsor_of_terror_groups/singleton/
One of the most under-reported political stories of the last year is the devoted advocacy of numerous prominent American political figures on behalf of an Iranian group long formally designated as a Terrorist organization under U.S. law. A large bipartisan cast has received substantial fees from that group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and has then become their passionate defenders. The group of MEK shills includes former top Bush officials and other Republicans (Michael Mukasey, Fran Townsend, Andy Card, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani) as well as prominent Democrats (Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark). As The Christian Science Monitor reported last August, those individuals “have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.” No matter what one thinks of this group – here is a summary of its activities – it is formally designated as a Terrorist group and it is thus a felony under U.S. law to provide it with any “material support.”
There are several remarkable aspects to this story. The first is that there are numerous Muslims inside the U.S. who have been prosecuted for providing “material support for Terrorism” for doing far less than these American politicians are publicly doing on behalf of a designated Terrorist group. A Staten Island satellite TV salesman in 2009 was sentenced to five years in federal prison merely for including a Hezbollah TV channel as part of the satellite package he sold to customers; a Massachusetts resident, Tarek Mehanna, is being prosecuted now ”for posting pro-jihadist material on the internet”; a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, Jubair Ahmad, was indicted last September for uploading a 5-minute video to YouTube that was highly critical of U.S. actions in the Muslim world, an allegedly criminal act simply because prosecutors claim he discussed the video in advance with the son of a leader of a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba); a Saudi Arabian graduate student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was prosecuted simply for maintaining a website with links “to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and in Israel” and “jihadist” sites that solicited donations for extremist groups (he was ultimately acquitted); and last July, a 22-year-old former Penn State student and son of an instructor at the school, Emerson Winfield Begolly, was indicted for — in the FBI’s words — “repeatedly using the Internet to promote violent jihad against Americans” by posting comments on a “jihadist” Internet forum including “a comment online that praised the shootings” at a Marine Corps base, action which former Obama lawyer Marty Lederman said “does not at first glance appear to be different from the sort of advocacy of unlawful conduct that is entitled to substantial First Amendment protection.”
Yet here we have numerous American political figures receiving substantial fees from a group which is legally designated under American law as a Terrorist organization. Beyond that, they are meeting with the Terrorist leaders of that group repeatedly (Howard Dean told NPR last year about the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi: “I have actually had dinner with Mrs. Rajavi on numerous occasions. I do not find her very terrorist-like” and has even insisted that she should be recognized as Iran’s President, while Rudy Giuliani publicly told her at a Paris conference in December: “These are the most important yearnings of the human soul that you support, and for your organization to be described as a terrorist organization is just simply a disgrace”). And, after receiving fees from the Terrorist group and meeting with its Terror leaders, these American political figures are going forth and disseminating pro-MEK messages on its behalf and working to have it removed from the Terrorist list.
Given all the prosecutions of politically powerless Muslims for far fewer connections to Terrorist groups than the actions of these powerful (paid) political figures, what conceivable argument is there for not prosecuting Dean, Giuliani, and the rest of them for providing “material support for Terrorism”? What they are providing to MEK is the definitive “material support.” Although these activities (along with those of the above-listed prosecuted Muslims) should be protected free speech, the U.S. Government has repeatedly imprisoned people for it. Indeed, as Georgetown Law Professor David Cole noted, these activities on behalf of MEK are clearly prosecutable as “material support for Terrorism” under the standard advocated by the Bush and Obama DOJs and accepted by the Supreme Court in the Holder v. Humanitarian Law case of 2009, which held that even peaceful advocacy on behalf of a Terrorist group can be prosecuted if done in coordination with the group (ironically, many of these paid MEK supporters have long been advocates of broad application of “material support” statutes (when applied to Muslims, that is) and have even praised the Humanitarian Law case). If we had anything even remotely approaching equal application of the law, Dean, Giuliani, Townsend and the others would be facing prosecution as Terrorist-helpers.
Then there’s long been the baffling question of where MEK was getting all of this money to pay these American officials. Indeed, the pro-MEK campaign has been lavishly funded. As the CSM noted: ”Besides the string of well-attended events at prestigious American hotels and locations, and in Paris, Brussels, and Berlin, the campaign has included full-page advertisements in The New York Times and Washington Post — which can cost $175,000 apiece.” MEK is basically little more than a nomadic cult: after they sided with Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, they were widely loathed in Iran and their 3,400 members long lived in camps in Iraq, but the Malaki government no longer wants them there. How has this rag-tag Terrorist cult of Iranian dissidents, who are largely despised in Iran, able to fund such expensive campaigns and to keep U.S. officials on its dole?
All of these mysteries received substantial clarity from an NBC News report by Richard Engel and Robert Windrem yesterday. Citing two anonymous “senior U.S. officials,” that report makes two amazing claims: (1) that it was MEK which perpetrated the string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and (2) the Terrorist group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.” These senior officials also admitted that “the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign” but claims it “has no direct involvement.” Iran has long insisted the Israel and the U.S. are using MEK to carry out Terrorist attacks on its soil, including the murder of its scientists, and NBC notes that these acknowledgments “confirm charges leveled by Iran’s leaders” (MEK issued a statement denying the report).
If these senior U.S. officials are telling the truth, there are a number of vital questions and conclusions raised by this. First, it would mean that the assurances by MEK’s paid American shills such as Howard Dean that “they are unarmed” are totally false: whoever murdered these scientists is obviously well-armed. Second, this should completely gut the effort to remove MEK from the list of designated Terrorist groups; after all, murdering Iran’s scientists through the use of bombs and guns is a defining act of a Terror group, at least as U.S. law attempts to define the term. Third, this should forever resolve the debate in which I was involved last month about whether the attack on these Iranian scientists constitutes Terrorism; as Daniel Larison put it yesterday: “If true, the murders of Iranian nuclear scientists with bombs have been committed by a recognized terrorist group. Can everyone acknowledge at this point that these attacks were acts of terrorism?”
Fourth, and most important: if this report is true, is this not definitive proof that Israel is, by definition, a so-called state sponsor of Terrorism? Leaving everything else aside, if Israel, as NBC reports, has “financed, trained and armed” a group officially designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, isn’t that the definitive act of how one becomes an official “state sponsor of Terrorism”? Amazingly, as Daniel Larison notes, one of the people who most vocally attacked me for labeling the murder of Iranian scientists as “Terrorism” and for generally arguing that Terrorism is a meaningless, cynically applied term — Commentary‘s Jonathan Tobin — yesterday issued a justification for why Israel should be working with Terrorist groups like MEK. As Larison wrote about Tobin’s article:
In other words, Israeli state sponsorship of a terrorist group is acceptable because it’s in a good cause. . . . Because Israel is overreacting to a perceived threat from Iran, Tobin believes it is entirely defensible for Israel to partner with a recognized terrorist group. In other words, Tobin believes that terrorism is “entirely defensible” so long as it is committed by the right people and directed at the right targets. It’s as if he is going out of his way to vindicate Glenn Greenwald.
Of course, as I documented in my last book, those who are politically and financially well-connected are free to commit even the most egregious crimes; for that reason, the very idea of prosecuting Giuliani, Rendell, Ridge, Townsend, Dean and friends for their paid labor on behalf of a Terrorist group is unthinkable, a suggestion not fit for decent company, even though powerless Muslims have been viciously prosecuted for far less egregious connections to such groups. But this incident also underscores the specific point that the term Terrorism is so completely meaningless, manipulated and mischievous: it’s just a cynical term designed to delegitimize violence and even political acts undertaken by America’s enemies while shielding from criticism the actual Terrorism undertaken by itself and its allies. The spectacle whereby a designated Terrorist group can pay top American politicians to advocate for them even as they engage in violent Terrorist acts, all while being trained, funded and aided by America’s top client state, should forever end the controversy over that glaringly obvious proposition.
* * * * *
Four notes: (1) The book event I did with Noam Chomsky last November in Boston will be broadcast several times this weekend on C-SPAN; the schedule is here; (2) The New Zealand political journal Listener has an interview and profile of me and With Liberty and Justice for Some; (3) the video for two of the civil liberties events I did this week are now online: this one at Indiana University/Purdue and this one from Columbia University; and (4) I’ll be the keynote speaker at the annual dinner of the ACLU in Idaho tomorrow night; ticket information is here.
* * * * *
According to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a NATO airstrike yesterday in Afghanistan killed 8 children. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar yesterday patiently explained that drone strikes — which Americans widely support, including American liberals — are “completely illegal and unlawful” and “counterproductive” because they “fuel terrorism,” since people tend to become quite angry at the foreign power which slaughters their children, their spouses, their parents, their neighbors, etc., i.e., for every Terrorist the U.S. allegedly kills, it creates five more people wanting to attack the U.S. (see her answers to the two questions beginning at 4:30):
Follow Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: @ggreenwald.More Glenn Greenwald
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(Rajavi from Saddam to AIPAC)
(Mehdi Abrishamchi and Massoud Rajavi taking orders from Saddam's head of secret services)
(Maryam Rajavi directly ordered the massacre of Kurdish people)
(A cult session in Ashraf Camp Iraq - under the protection of Saddam)
(Chemical attack on Halabche, Kurdistan, Iraq)
(MKO members in European Countries 2003)
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11550
Mr. Najarian declares his separation from Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) terror group
.
... After I joined the cult in Iraq, I underwent too much suffering for over a decade. At least I came to the painful fact that the organization had abused me and thousands of other members who had once joined it devotedly and sincerely. It was nothing but a destructive cult of personality that was due to satisfy the interests of Rajavi. I came up to make the decision so late because I was captured in the cult-like atmosphere of the group. The organization had cut us off the outside world and had barred the infiltration of any news or information from the world ...
Sahar Family Foundation, January 31 2012
Translated by Nejat Society,
http://www.nejatngo.org/en/post.aspx?id=4190
Link to the original (Persian)
http://iran-interlink.org/fa/?mod=view&id=11535
I am Mohammad Reza Najarian, former member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization. Here, I declare my separation from the cult of Rajavi [the MKO].
I missed about 11 years of my life as a member of the cult. I had left my family, my life, my younghood and all my other favorites for the sake of MKO and its leader, and the illusion of struggle for prosperity of the Iranian nation.
After I joined the cult in Iraq, I underwent too much suffering for over a decade. At least I came to the painful fact that the organization had abused me and thousands of other members who had once joined it devotedly and sincerely. It was nothing but a destructive cult of personality that was due to satisfy the interests of Rajavi.
I came up to make the decision so late because I was captured in the cult-like atmosphere of the group. The organization had cut us off the outside world and had barred the infiltration of any news or information from the world.
My family had several times come to Camp Ashraf during the past three years but I never got informed that my old parent had born the sufferings of such a trip to visit me.
I declare that the only thing that is not worth in his view is the life of human beings.
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11464
Sadeq Khavari, MKO defector return home
(aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MEK, Rajavi cult)
..jpg)
... another dissociated member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, Mr. Sadeq Khavari returned home after years of imprisonment in the cult of Rajavi. He was warmly welcomed by his loving family. On Thursday, January 12nd, 2012, Nejat Society Office in Gilan had the honor to wecome a recently released prisoner of the Rajavis. Nejat office Gilan branch hopes the massive release of all dissident members of the MKO who are held hostage in Camp Ashraf. The welcome meeting lasted two hours. A number of family members of Mr. Sadeq Khavari including his parents, brothers and sisters had come to receive their beloved warmly ...
Nejat Bloggers, January 18 2012
http://www.nejatngo.org/en/post.aspx?id=4166
It is a pleasure that another dissociated member of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, Mr. Sadeq Khavari returned home after years of imprisonment in the cult of Rajavi. He was warmly welcomed by his loving family.
On Thursday, January 12nd, 2012, Nejat Society Office in Gilan had the honor to wecome a recently released prisoner of the Rajavis. Nejat office Gilan branch hopes the massive release of all dissident members of the MKO who are held hostage in Camp Ashraf.
The welcome meeting lasted two hours. A number of family members of Mr. Sadeq Khavari including his parents, brothers and sisters had come to receive their beloved warmly. They were hugging and kissing him while cursing to Rajavi. They thanked God for they saw their dream came true and their loved son could ultimately manage to back home after ten years
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11470
Iraq issues arrest warrants for 120 Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) members
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... Iraq had pushed for the expulsion of the group by mid-January, but foreign intervention hindered the process, he said, adding that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked Iraq to be patient in this regard and extend the deadline for the expulsion. The MKO started its activities as a terrorist group based in Iraq in the early 1980s. In addition to the assassination of hundreds of Iranian officials and citizens, the group cooperated with Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in its repression of the Iraqi people. The MKO had fought as a mechanized division in alliance with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war ...
(Rajavi cult or MKO aslo known as Saddam's Private Army)
Tehran Times, January 19 2012
http://tehrantimes.com/politics/94690-iraq-issues-arrest-warrants-for-120-mko-members
TEHRAN – Arrest warrants have been issued for 120 members of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced in a televised interview late on Tuesday.
During his remarks, Maliki described the MKO as a “terrorist” group and said the it has committed terrorist acts in Iraq and Iran for many years.
He also reiterated the Iraqi government’s decision to expel the members of the group and to bring an end to the issue.
The constitution does not allow the terrorist group to use the Iraqi soil as a safe haven for its moves against Iran, the prime minister stated.
Maliki went on to say that Iraq wants to maintain relations with its neighboring countries and to put an end to the crises that Saddam Hussein created in relations with the countries including Iran and Turkey.
Iraq had pushed for the expulsion of the group by mid-January, but foreign intervention hindered the process, he said, adding that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asked Iraq to be patient in this regard and extend the deadline for the expulsion.
The MKO started its activities as a terrorist group based in Iraq in the early 1980s. In addition to the assassination of hundreds of Iranian officials and citizens, the group cooperated with Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in its repression of the Iraqi people.
The MKO had fought as a mechanized division in alliance with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. But it was disarmed and left stranded after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 that toppled the dictator.
The U.S. government characterized the MKO as a cult and designated it a terrorist group in 1997. The MKO has mounted a major campaign in the U.S. and Europe and enlisted many top national security figures from mostly Republican administrations as well as a number of prominent Democratic politicians to get its terrorist designation lifted.
Daniel Zucker, Maryam Rajavi and ALi Safavi
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11283
Families representing Camp Ashraf residents want fast and peaceful resolution
.
... While nobody expected the MEK leaders to welcome the families with open arms, and nobody expected the MEK's callous and cynical owners to care for the individual welfare of their gladiators and slaves, it is shocking that even internationally renowned human rights organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UNHRC have not uttered a word about this situation. These protectors of human rights may as well have been paid by the Rajavis for their spurious appeals to the Iraqis to 'protect the human rights' the camp's residents. Not one single word of criticism has been said against the Rajavi's blatant and cruel denials of these families' just demands ...
Anne Singleton, Middle East Strategy Consultants, December 22 2011
http://mesconsult.com
Anne Singleton is the author of the books "Saddam's Private Army" and "Camp Ashraf"
http://camp-ashraf.com
The most unhelpful aspect of the negotiations to close Camp Ashraf and remove the residents from Iraq is that the Western agents continue to act on the myth that the people inside the camp are somehow a single, discrete entity with no connection to the outside world and no say in their own treatment. Thus it is reported without context, analysis or explanation that the Mojahedin-e Khalq will need to be transferred to a separate facility - specifically the former U.S. military base Camp Liberty. Once there they will need to be interviewed by the UNHCR for decisions to be made on their refugee status, with UNAMI overseeing Iraqi conduct at the new camp. And out of this process their futures will be determined.
But even this, 'the desired outcome', is being promoted without the actual cooperation of the MEK leader.
This proposed mass movement of the camp's residents can only give rise to a pseudo angst-ridden hand-wringing which at one time fears mass suicide, at another their mass deportation to Iran where they will be tortured and executed, it fears they are labelled as terrorists and will not be 'allowed' to come to the West, and then fears that they will come to the West and pose a security threat. Underpinning the whole Washington-led negotiation process is the basic principle 'how do we conserve the MEK'.
Behind the naive and unhelpful scenario of convincing Massoud Rajavi to agree the mass relocation of his captives to an open camp over which he has no control lies a blatant violation of fundamental human rights which is taking place before everybody's eyes but which nobody apparently wants to acknowledge. This is because focusing on this situation would remove any legitimacy from the negotiations. It would expose the reality behind the myth; Massoud Rajavi is nobody's representative. It would mean acknowledging that Rajavi has falsely imprisoned over three thousand individuals and is daily violating their basic human rights and it would mean moving forward on that basis.
There are currently around 400 families at the gates of the camp. They have come determined to rescue their loved ones and protect them from harm. These are the true representatives of their captured relatives in the camp. Why do they still have no voice? Why do international agencies ignore them and pretend they have no stake in the negotiations and outcome.
Over the past eight years family after family has tried to assert their basic right - to meet with their closest relatives in a secure and private atmosphere outside the control of the MEK. The demand pre-dates the decision to close Camp Ashraf, and will certainly post-date any moves at the camp. Indeed, the biggest scandal is that this demand has nothing to do with the Iraqi determination to close the camp before the end of 2011, but it is still being ignored.
While nobody expected the MEK leaders to welcome the families with open arms, and nobody expected the MEK's callous and cynical owners to care for the individual welfare of their gladiators and slaves, it is shocking that even internationally renowned human rights organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the UNHRC have not uttered a word about this situation. These protectors of human rights may as well have been paid by the Rajavis for their spurious appeals to the Iraqis to 'protect the human rights' the camp's residents. Not one single word of criticism has been said against the Rajavi's blatant and cruel denials of these families' just demands. Not one word of criticism has been levelled against the Rajavis' daily abuse of human rights inside the camp in spite of the on-going testimonies of both past and recent escapees.
It is the urgent obligation of every humanitarian agency involved to prefix the mythical negotiations with the unequivocal demand that Rajavi immediately and peacefully open the gate of Camp Ashraf and allow the people inside to have contact with their families. There can be no legal or moral obstacle or objection to such a course of action.
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11332
Ashraf residents transfer, Families gathering
.
... A large number of families of Camp Ashraf residents gathered in front of the Camp, this morning, reported Nejat Society representative. Families of Ashraf prisoners chanted slogans to once more announce their call to visit their loved ones. Local and foreign reporters are present in there in order to broadcast the news of the region. As it was also reported 100 residents of Camp Ashraf are relocated in Camp liberty, a site near Baghdad international airport, today. Families are hopeful to see or at least get news of their children --after years of no news about them-- while they are transferred from Ashraf to Baghdad ...
Nejat Bloggers, December 27 2011
http://www.nejatngo.org/en/post.aspx?id=4105
A large number of families of Camp Ashraf residents gathered in front of the Camp, this morning, reported Nejat Society representative.
Families of Ashraf prisoners chanted slogans to once more announce their call to visit their loved ones.
Local and foreign reporters are present in there in order to broadcast the news of the region.
As it was also reported 100 residents of Camp Ashraf are relocated in Camp liberty, a site near Baghdad international airport, today.
Families are hopeful to see or at least get news of their children --after years of no news about them-- while they are transferred from Ashraf to Baghdad.
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11194
During their visit to
Mojahedin-e Khalq cemetery and Camp Ashraf
victims prayed for forgiveness for their torturer
.
... they are standing beside the grave of their former torturer. Both men were sent to Abu Ghraib political prison by Massoud Rajavi after extensive imprisonment, isolation and torture inside the MEK’s own prisons failed to force them to submit to Rajavi. Rafi’ee Nejad frequently visited them even when they were in Abu Ghraib. They were released during the fall of Saddam in 2003. There were over 50 registered ex-MEK prisoners in Abu Ghraib at that time labelled as a group as ”Mojahedin Deposits”. Remembering the brutality of Rajavi’s torturers and prisons, both victims of Rajavi and Saddam prayed for forgiveness for their torturer ...
Iran Interlink, Camp Ashraf, Iraq, December 11 2011
http://iran-interlink.org
The MEK cemetery was previously inaccessible as it lay inside the former boundaries of Camp Ashraf. Following the Iraqi military operation to reclaim illegally held land from the MEK in April 2011, the cemetery is now open to view and to independent investigation.
Families and former MEK members arriving at the cemetery led by Mr Hassan Azizi a veteran former member. He spent years struggling to get himself and his children out. Still later his wife also managed to escape. The family now live in the Netherlands. Mr. Azizi was part of the European delegation recently visiting Iraq and the Camp.
This is a memorial to the MEK who died in the MEK’s Operation Pearl in Iraqi Kurdistan in which Rajavi took orders from Saddam to massacre Kurdish villagers. Maryam Rajavi famously ordered her forces to run over the victims with their tanks so as not to waste bullets unnecessarily. The MEK, acting as Saddam’s Private Army, were used to viciously quell the Kurdish uprisings in the north.
In the south in 1991 the MEK were also used to suppress Shiite uprisings. This picture is a memorial to three of the top MEK commanders killed by the people of Karbala during the Shiite uprising when they took over Saddam’s Secret services HQ in the province. The bodies were never recovered. The three central graves are flanked by the graves of Neda Hassani and Sediqeh Mojaveri who died as a result of self-immolation ordered by Maryam Rajavi to protest her arrest by French anti-terrorism police at Auvers-sur-Oise in 2003.
Before the Iraqis gained control of the cemetery Rajavi had ordered that the pictures of the graves in the whole graveyard be mixed up so they do not correspond to the names on the graves. Perhaps only Rajavi can explain his motive for such a bizarre act.
The Iraqis have reported however that some of the graves have been found to contain more bodies than the single named person indicated on the headstones.
Ex members identified many graves of people who have been killed in the hands of the leaders of the organisation.
Among the graves they also found the grave of Nader Rafi’ee Nejad
The grave of Nader Rafi’ee Nejad
Nader Rafi'ee Nejad acted as a torturer for the Mojahedin-e Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi. He was a veteran member of the MEK who, along with Reza Khaksar (later killed during an armed clash in 1981) and Hassan Mohassel (a former police officer and later a guard in the MEK’s prisons in Iraq), served with the Revolutionary Court in Evin prison after the Iranian revolution.
Rafi’ee Nejad interrogated and tortured former officials of the ousted regime of Shah. Due to the MEK's pursuit of its own radical policies after 1980, Rafi'ee Nejad, Mohassel and Khaksar were later dismissed from the Revolutionary Court by the government of the Islamic Republic at that time.
After the armed struggle began in 1981, Rafi'ee Nejad fled to Europe and was appointed to the MEK’s foreign relations department. In 1985, he was introduced as a leading member and in 1991 as deputy to an executive board in the MEK. In 1990, he shed his ‘diplomatic’ suit and donned the uniform for jailors of the MEK in Iraq.
In that year, he attended a course with Iraq's intelligence and security service to undergo classic training by Iraqi interrogators.
He was involved in torturing Mohammed Hussein Sobhani and also the killing of Parviz Ahmadi who died under torture.
In recent years after the fall of Saddam, Nader Rafi’ee Nejad frequently appeared on the clandestine satellite TV station of the organisation pretending to be a legal expert, promoting the punishment of the ex-members wherever they could be found. He always referred to the cult leader’s fatwa that ‘the people who have managed to run away from the cult have to be killed…’
Two of the victims who have been directly tortured by Nader Rafi’ee Nejad are Mohammad Hussein Sobhani and Ali Ghashghavi. In the picture above, they are standing beside the grave of their former torturer. Both men were sent to Abu Ghraib political prison by Massoud Rajavi after extensive imprisonment, isolation and torture inside the MEK’s own prisons failed to force them to submit to Rajavi. Rafi’ee Nejad frequently visited them even when they were in Abu Ghraib. They were released during the fall of Saddam in 2003. There were over 50 registered ex-MEK prisoners in Abu Ghraib at that time labelled as a group as ”Mojahedin Deposits”.
Remembering the brutality of Rajavi’s torturers and prisons, both victims of Rajavi and Saddam prayed for forgiveness for their torturer.