Trial of Iran Regime Diplomat Over Plot to Bomb Resistance's 2018 Paris Summit
Introduction: On Friday, November 27, 2020, after nearly two and a half years of investigation, the Antwerp Court began hearing the case of four defendants, including a so-called Iranian regime diplomat and three terrorist accomplices for attempting to bomb the Iranian Resistance's Free Iran rally in June 2018 in France's Villepinte.

The federal prosecutor demanded 20 years in prison for Assadollah Assadi, the third secretary of the Iranian embassy in Vienna and commander of the failed operation. The prosecutor asked for 18 years imprisonment for the couple Nasimeh Naami and Amir Saaduni, who received the bomb from Assadi and planned to take it to the Villepinte assembly hall, and 15 years for Mehrdad Arefani. The Belgian citizenship of the three Iranian-Belgian terrorists will also be revoked.

For the first time in the forty-year history of the theocratic regime, a working diplomat, carrying with him incriminating evidence and documents, was caught red handed and is being brought to justice. Any political decision on this matter must be commensurate with the seriousness of this terrorist crimes, the potential to cause a major bloodbath in a major European capital, under the cover of diplomatic immunity. Such decisiveness would certainly act as a deterrent against future similar actions by the Iranian regime.  

According to William Bourdon, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, "In this historic trial, for the first time, the mullahs' regime is symbolically in the position of the accused and is represented and tried in the person of its so-called diplomat."

The trial will continue on Thursday, December 3, with the final verdict to be issued about a month later. Below is a sample of the excerpted media reporting on this historic trial.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, November 25, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — The bomb was meant to explode in a Paris suburb during a huge rally being held by an exiled Iranian opposition group. It could have caused carnage...

The court case in the city of Antwerp has the potential to embarrass Iran. According to legal documents from the two-year investigation obtained by The Associated Press, Belgium's intelligence and security agency (VSSE) says the diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, operated on orders of Iran's authorities and brought the explosives to Europe himself.

In a note to Belgium's federal prosecutor, the agency argued that "the planned attack was conceived in the name of Iran and at its instigation."...

"The regime's leaders must be prosecuted and face justice," she [the NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi] said last month during a video conference with journalists...

Upon his arrest, investigators also found a red notebook in Assadi's car with instructions on how to use the bomb. The analysis of the suspects' text messages and emails revealed they used code language to communicate, with "PlayStation 4" the alleged name for the explosive device.

The French side of the investigation also established that Assadi visited Villepinte during the 2017 MEK rally, possibly on a reconnaissance trip... 
REUTERS, November 27, 2020

PARIS (Reuters) - An Iranian diplomat and three other Iranians go on trial in Antwerp, Belgium on Friday for planning to bomb a 2018 meeting in France of an exiled opposition group, the first time an EU country has put an Iranian official on trial for terrorism.

Belgian prosecutors charged Vienna-based diplomat Assadolah Assadi and the three others with planning an attack on a rally of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)... Assadi was the third counsellor at Iran's embassy in Vienna. French officials have said he was in charge of intelligence in southern Europe and was acting on orders from Tehran.

According to documents reviewed by Reuters, Belgian authorities believe Assadi brought the explosives from Tehran to Vienna on a commercial flight.

"The attack plan was conceived in the name of Iran and under its leadership. It was not a personal initiative by Assadi," Jaak Raes, head of the Belgium's state security service (VSSE), said in a letter to the prosecutor dated Feb. 2, 2020.

France said Iran's intelligence ministry was behind the plot and expelled an Iranian diplomat. The EU froze the assets of an Iranian intelligence unit and officials...
THE WASHINGTON POST, November 25, 2020

... On June 30, 2018, Belgian police officers tipped off about a possible attack against the annual meeting of the the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, stopped the couple's Mercedes car. In their luggage, they found 550 grams of the unstable TATP explosive and a detonator. In its report, Belgium's bomb disposal unit said the device was of professional quality.

TATP has been used in several attacks in Europe in recent years, including in 2016 when suicide bombers killed 32 people on the Brussels subway and at an airport. It could have caused a sizable explosion and panic in the crowd, estimated at 25,000 people, that had gathered that day in the French town of Villepinte, north of Paris.

Regarded by investigators as the "operational commander" of the attack, Assadi is suspected of having hired the couple years earlier.

According to a VSSE note, Assadi, 48, is an officer of Iran's intelligence and security ministry who operated under cover at Iran's embassy in Vienna. Belgium's state security officers believe he worked for the ministry's so-called Department 312, the directorate for internal security, which is on the European Union's list of organizations regarded as terrorist...

Travel records obtained by the AP show Assadi made several trips to Iran in the months leading up to the rally, returning from the last one little more than a week before the thwarted attack. According to a note from the prosecution's files, Assadi carried the explosives on the commercial flight to Austria. He allegedly handed the bomb over to Saadouni and Naami during a meeting in a Pizza Hut restaurant in Luxembourg just two days before they were arrested...
THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 27, 2020

... The bomb was handed over at a Pizza Hut in Luxembourg. The intent, prosecutors say, was to blow up a rally in France of a prominent opposition group to the Iranian government.

…The prosecutors have accused the Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, 48, of bringing the bomb, a little more than a pound of TATP explosives and a detonator, to Vienna from Iran in his luggage on an Austrian Airlines flight. He then drove it to Luxembourg in a rented car and handed it over to an Iranian-Belgian couple…., prosecutors say.

… The head of Belgium's State Security Service, Jaak Raes, said that intelligence officials had determined the planned bombing was a state-sanctioned operation, approved in Tehran.

"The plan to attack was conceived on behalf of Iran and under its leadership," Mr. Raes wrote in a letter to law enforcement officials, including the Belgian federal prosecutor, Frédéric Van Leeuw. "It was not a personal initiative of Assadi."
POLITICO, November 27, 2020

This Friday, the Iranian diplomat, the couple and a fourth alleged accomplice go on trial on terrorism charges in the Belgian city of Antwerp after two years in which law enforcement officials across Europe amassed reams of detailed evidence of the plot they say was authorized at the highest levels of government in Tehran.

The case will likely have grave ramifications for EU-Iran relations, renewing attention on Tehran's record of state-sponsored terrorism just as European leaders were hoping a change in the U.S. administration might help revive the Iran nuclear agreement.
 
…Evidence compiled by the Belgian authorities indicates Assadi, whose title was third counselor at the embassy in Vienna, was allegedly an operative of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and Saadouni and Naami were also MOIS agents who traveled several times to Tehran starting in 2010 for meetings and training — visits on which they did not see family.
  
… The target of the plot was an annual convention of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq or People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), the foremost opposition group to the Iranian government and its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Investigators said the bomb was intended primarily to assassinate Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of Resistance to Iran (NCRI), the MEK's diplomatic wing. Rajavi's title is president-elect to signify her potential role as interim leader in the event the current Iranian regime is overthrown.
 
In late 2017 and early 2018, a few months before the planned attack, the Iranian government faced a series of unusually forceful street protests that the regime blamed on MEK and other opposition groups. Some MEK officials believe the bombing was intended as retaliation for the protests.

…In a statement on Thursday ahead of the opening of the trial, Rajavi, the leader of the NCRI, praised the Belgian authorities and characterized the case as an opportunity to hold the Iranian regime accountable.

"The independent and professional investigations by Belgian judicial authorities are commendable," Rajavi said. "As these investigations have shown, we are facing a case of organized state terrorism.

"The Supreme National Security Council, presided over by [Iranian President] Hassan Rouhani made the decision to bomb the Iranian Resistance's annual gathering at the Villepinte, and the regime's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei approved it," Rajavi said, adding: "Today, far beyond just this particular court, the entirety of the regime is being prosecuted before the world's conscience, especially the people of Europe."
LE MONDE, November 27, 2020

(Original in French)
A court in Antwerp, Belgium, on Friday (November 27) began examining a high-profile case involving an Iranian diplomat and three of his alleged accomplices. Arrested in Belgium, France and Germany on June 30 and July 1, 2018, they were indicted for attempted terrorist assassination and preparation of a terrorist offense.

Their target was to be a large meeting of the opposition to the mullahs' regime on June 30 in Villepinte (Seine-Saint-Denis). A Belgian-Iranian couple, arrested in Brussels the very morning of the meeting, were carrying a sophisticated explosive device: half a kilo of acetone peroxide (TATP) which, commanded from a distance, could have caused considerable damage and killed people. many people, according to experts.

Tens of thousands of participants were expected for the annual meeting of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which has since 1981 brought together five opposition organizations. It is chaired by Maryam Rajavi, already targeted in Europe by other attempted attacks in 1995 and 2014.

Numerous personalities were in the front row in Villepinte, and 25 of them became civil parties. Ingrid Betancourt, ex-senator and presidential candidate of Colombia, addressing the court referred to "the cold sweat which [him] runs down her back at the idea of the carnage that could have taken place".

… The investigation file also reveals that a mullah known to be close to Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, traveled from Tehran to Vienna, then to Paris, to accompany Assadi on a reconnaissance mission in France...

… In France, two and a half years after Villepinte's failed attempt, the intelligence services remain marked. "This case is extremely serious, it could have caused carnage, confirms a member of the French intelligence community. But we had to keep a low profile. "
THE TIMES, November 28, 2020

An Iranian diplomat planned to carry out a terrorist attack in France that could have killed five British MPs and Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's lawyer, a court has been told.

Assadollah Assadi, 48, failed to appear yesterday for the opening of his trial at which he is accused of masterminding a foiled attack on an event held by Iranian opposition activists in June 2018.

… Belgian prosecutors claim that the plot was concocted with support from Tehran. Representatives of the Mujahidin-e-Khalq opposition group, whose annual rally was the alleged target, claimed that Mr Assadi had been ordered by Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, not to attend. Thousands of activists and politicians were there, and police believe that the plot would have caused mass loss of life had it succeeded.

… It is the first time that a European country has put an Iranian official on trial for terrorism charges. Tehran has threatened a "proportionate response" against countries involved in the trial.

Mujahidin-e-Khalq is a political movement that advocates the overthrow of the Iranian regime and the installation of its own government. The bomb is believed to have been intended for Maryam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance to Iran, who was at the rally and promotes herself as an interim leader of Iran if the regime were ousted.

French investigators claim to have found evidence that Mr Assadi had attended the same rally a year earlier in what they believe was a scouting mission.
SUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, November 27, 2020

(Original in German)
The trial of the Iranian Assadollah A., 48 years old, begins this Friday in Antwerp, and armed groups in the Middle East, but certainly most intelligence services on the European continent, will want to follow this trial very closely.

…It is a process that a lot depends on politically - for Iran's tense relationship with the West. The trial documents, which the Süddeutsche Zeitung, NDR and WDR were able to view, trace an extensive international investigation.

…He is said to have carried 550 grams of the highly explosive TATP to Europe in a diplomatic suitcase, a substance that is popular with terrorists because it can be produced comparatively easily from commercially available chemicals. Assadollah A.'s bomb is said to have been constructed "very professionally", according to an expert from the Belgian police, with an explosive power that could have killed many people.

… The public prosecutor's office assumes that the alleged counselor gave them the exact instructions. They are said to have used code words later when discussing the attack plan. The "Playstation", as they probably called the explosive device, was connected to the "television", reported the alleged terrorist aides to their instructor. This was possibly meant that the remote detonator had been installed, which Assadollah A. had also handed over - hidden in a women's toiletry bag.

"We'll win the trophy," said a text message to the diplomat. He in turn promised to personally report to the "Agha" about the successful operation. That just means mr. The investigators assume that a high-ranking official of the Iranian secret service or even the Iranian religious leader Ali Khamenei could have been meant.
ABOUT NCRI-US
The NCRI-US is the US Representative Office of National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The NCRI is a broad coalition of democratic Iranian organizations, groups, and personalities and was founded in 1981 in Tehran. The NCRI is an inclusive and pluralistic parliament-in-exile that has more than 500 members representing a broad spectrum of political tendencies in Iran. The NCRI aims to establish a democratic and non-nuclear republic in Iran, based on the separation of religion and state. Women comprise more than half of the Council's members. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi is the president-elect of the NCRI for the transitional period.
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These materials are being distributed by the National Council of Resistance of Iran-U.S. Representative Office. Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C