Infiltration and espionage PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 29 November 2005
The clerical regime has been engaged in attempts to infiltrate opposition organizations and exiles for a long time. It has been using this tactic in its psychological warfare against the Resistance and in intelligence gathering for terrorist operations.


In late 1997, the counter-intelligence directorate of the National Liberation Army of Iran published the names of 34 MOIS agents who had been sent to infiltrate the NLA between 1992 to 1997. It also published the particulars and addresses of more than 150 MOIS officials and operatives and the addresses of more than 60 secret safe houses, hotels and locations used by the MOIS (10). The directorate also revealed details on MOIS plans to “assassinate commanders and combatants, poison drinking water and food, and collect intelligence on meetings.” The MOIS taught some of its spies to pretend to the PMOI that they had escaped from the regime’s prisons.

In July 2002, the NLA counter-intelligence directorate also revealed the names and particulars of 36 more MOIS agents identified since the previous report (11). In this 120-page report, the NLA counter-intelligence revealed the details of contact, payment, and briefing of spies by the Intelligence Ministry in Iran before sending them abroad on assignment. The missions included, for example, intelligence gathering, sabotage, writing pro-regime slogans in NLA bases, identifying potential collaborators within the organization and recruiting them, arresting or killing members of the Resistance inside Iran or near the border region and plans to assassinate and murder PMOI members through poisoning water and food of their bases.

The report also gave the names of 23 PMOI members murdered by these infiltrators. They were Abdolreza Shatti Ahmadian, Behrouz Majd-Abadi, Ali Nouri, Loghman Haj Khanian, Abdollah Towhidi-far, Parviz Ahmadi, Farhad Tahmasbi, Jamal Ahani, Mahmoud Gholizadeh, Hadi Homayoun, Akbar Bagheri, Philip Yousefieh, Ramin Gholam Ghadaksaz, Ahmad Pahlevan Shandiz, Mehdi Baba’i, Issa Heidari, Abdollah Navid Hassanloui, Mahmoud Agah, Hossein Alamdari, Mohsen Arab-Mohammadi, Mehdi Baimani, Monireh Akbari and Mojgan Zahedi. Dozens more were trapped by infiltrators inside Iran and executed. Hundreds of others were captured.

Despite the gravity of the crimes committed by the mullahs’ spies, the PMOI did not punish any of these agents. Instead, it informed international human rights organizations of the details of their actions and allowed them to return to Iran (see chapter seven for more details on the Resistance’s amnesty policy).

In recent years, security services in different countries uncovered several cases of infiltration and espionage against Iranian refugees and dissidents in Europe, which led to the arrest of the MOIS agents. In the year 2000, a German court convicted an MOIS agent, Hamid Khorsand, for attempting to infiltrate the ranks of the supporters of the PMOI and the NCRI in order to collect information for terrorist purposes.

The indictment issued by the federal prosecutor enumerated the methods used by Khorsand, including penetration of pro-Mojahedin milieu of Iranian exiles, and many documents on espionage and his case officers in the MOIS. The indictment noted that the MOIS intended to deliver a blow to the PMOI through Khorsand’s activities and paid him at least twice, each time a sum of DM 12,500.  The indictment also said that Khorsand’s first handler was an MOIS agent in the Iranian consulate in Berlin. After his expulsion in April 1997, in the aftermath of the Mykonos trial, a man named Seyyed became Khorsand’s case officer and gave Khorsand instructions from Tehran.

In repeated telephone contacts, the MOIS repeatedly urged Khorsand to maintain closer ties with the PMOI and constantly criticized him for not doing enough. Khorsand stepped up his contacts with the NCRI office in Cologne to gather more intelligence.