Dozens of European lawmakers see Iranian terror case as grounds for major policy changes

Two days ahead of the scheduled announcement of a verdict in the case against a high-ranking Iranian diplomat, 40 members of parliaments from European countries, members of the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe  (PACE) sent an open leader to the president of the body, commenting upon the case and urging a change in European policy toward Iran. The letter noted that the court case involves a plot that could have been the largest terrorist attack on European soil in many years, and that the orders for that plot can be traced back to the uppermost leadership of the Iranian regime.

This latter point has been repeated at length in the court proceedings, which began in November following two and a half years of investigation. The principal defendant in that case is Assadollah Assadi, the third counsellor at the Iranian embassy in Vienna. He is accused of having personally smuggled 500 grams of the high-explosive TATP into Europe before handing it off, along with a detonator, to two operatives he had recruited from Belgium.

Those two would-be bombers, Amir Saadouni and Nasimeh Naami, are of Iranian extraction but have each lived as Belgian citizens for years. Prosecutors have urged the court to strip them of that citizenship as well as issuing a prison sentence of up to 18 years. For Assadi, they have requested the maximum sentence of 20 years while also highlighting Tehran’s culpability in a way that suggests there should be broader accountability in the wake of the trial

This sentiment was seized upon by the authors of the recent open letter, which also named EU head of foreign policy Josep Borrell and European Council President Charles Michel as recipients, alongside the Parliamentary Assembly President, Rik Daems. The letter declared that the “undeniable evidence” presented by Belgian prosecutors “calls for a review of policy toward Iran in all areas.”

The letter specifically urged the EU leadership to hold Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accountable for the actions of diplomat-terrorists who ultimately report to his office. The same recommendation had been offered earlier in the month by a group of former government ministers representing more than a dozen European countries. Led by former Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, that group’s statement went on to suggest that the nations of Europe collectively “downgrade” their diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic and use the enhanced isolation to demand that Tehran provide “assurances that it will never engage in terrorism in Europe again.”

The more recent statement did seem to imply that the signers shared the former ministers’ belief that normal Iranian-Western relations constituted some form of appeasement. The parliamentarians condemned that practice by name and proceeded to “call for serious and effective measures including but not limited to the severance of trade ties and the vigorous investigation of Iranian personnel and institutions that are currently operating inside the borders of the EU.

The open letter offered fewer concrete recommendations than the statement from Terzi’s coalition. However, it took a broader view of the problems that one might hope to address via a shift toward more assertive Western policies. According to members of PACE, all future economic interactions between Iran and the EU should be conditioned upon Iran not only disavowing former terrorist activity in Europe but also improving the human rights situation inside the country.

The letter identified a meaningful link between these two issues, saying that the domestic repression of dissent and the practice of “exporting terrorism and fundamentalism abroad” have been dual foundations of “Iran’s survival strategy” for much of its 40-year history of theocratic dictatorship. The letter also emphasized that the foreign elements of that strategy have frequently been channeled through the regime’s embassies in Europe – a claim that is strongly upheld by the details of the Assadi case.

For critics of the regime’s foreign operations, the identity of Assadi’s co-defendants raises concern about the possibility that there are other Iranian terrorist sleeper cells scattered around Europe, which might be awakened for another plot similar to the one for which Saadouni and Naami are being prosecuted. Documents recovered from Assadi’s car indicate that he was in touch with numerous assets spanning at least 11 European countries, although it remains to be determined exactly what services those assets were providing in exchange for cash payments from the Iranian diplomat.

When the verdict is returned in the Assadi case, it will bring to a close an investigation that began prior to his arrest on July 1, 2018. Saadouni and Naami had been arrested one day earlier while attempting to travel from Belgium into France to infiltrate the international gathering of Iranian expatriates that is organized each year by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The third accomplice was arrested on the venue of the event in north of Paris. The prime target of the operation was NCRI President Maryam Rajavi, but had it been successful, the attack would have surely killed hundreds if not thousands of the attendees, including a number of high-profile European and American dignitaries who spoke in support of the cause of regime change leading to democratic government in Iran.

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