GERMANY FURIOUS WITH IRAN OVER SPY RING
▶ Revolutionary Guard employed Pakistani man to gather intelligence
The German government is under intense political pressure to toughen its stance on Tehran as opposition politicians demand prosecution of a visiting cleric tipped to be Iran’s new supreme leader.
And Tehran’s ambassador to the country was confronted with claims of a spy-ring run by Iran.
As Germany’s Sigmar Gabriel and other European foreign ministers prepare to meet Iran’s Javad Zarif tomorrow in Brussels, there is a fierce controversy raging in Europe’s largest economy over the deadly crackdown on Iranian protests, which have killed 22.
Berlin revealed it had summoned Ali Majedi, Iran’s ambassador, to deliver a reprimand against Tehran spying on people and groups with close ties to Israel.
The move comes after Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi, a Pakistani cultural representative, was convicted of gathering intelligence on Reinhold Robbe, the former head of the German-Israel Friendship Society, and an economics professor in Paris, for Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard.
The foreign ministry announced the December 22 summons yesterday calling it a completely unacceptable breach of German law.
“Spying on people and institutions with special ties to the state of Israel on German soil is an egregious violation of German law,” a ministry official said.
The EU has called Mr Zarif to talks in Brussels tomorrow with French, British and German foreign ministers in efforts to preserve the 2015 deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The meeting between the Iranian minister and the three European parties to the landmark 2015 agreement comes after Iran warned the world on Monday to prepare for the US to withdraw from the deal.
Meanwhile, German prosecutors have been urged to swoop on a cleric, who is in the country for medical treatment and is tipped to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iraq-born Ayatollah Mahmood Sharoudi, 67, was admitted to the International Neuroscience Institute in Hannover last week.
His stay had been kept secret until a group of Iranian exiles protested outside the centre and demanded Mr Shahroudi’s arrest for alleged human rights abuses while he was the head of Iran’s judiciary from 1999-2009.
He is chairman of the expediency council that resolves differences between the majlis and the guardian council, with close links to the supreme leader.
On taking up his job as Iran’s chief judge, Mr Shahroudi had made a fundamentalist declaration that Iran’s politics needed to be rebuilt.
“I have inherited a destroyed building that needs to be rebuilt from the scratch,” he said.
But his tenure in office coincided with the post-2009 election unrest across Iran, during which more than 120 Iranians were killed by security forces and thousands were jailed by hardline judges.
Almost all reformist dailies were also closed down by order of the judiciary, who called them “the enemy’s fifth column”.
With the news of Mr Shahroudi’s presence in Germany becoming public, the country’s Green Party politician Volker Beck filed a criminal complaint against him on Sunday, accusing him of “mass murder activity that could be prosecuted under German law covering crimes against humanity”.
“Germany should not be a sanctuary for such people, who in their country persecute people for political or religious reasons,” Mr Beck said. “The Iranian regime persecutes women, homosexuals, ethnic minorities and atheists.”
Iran’ former deputy foreign minister Ahmad Azizi has criticised the BBC Persian TV for reporting of the protests against Mr Shahroudi’s presence in Germany. It interviewed the German-Iranian Majid Samii, the founder of INI, about his role in facilitating the ayatollah’s treatment.
Prof Samii has come under pressure on social media to explain his relationship with Iran’s leadership, at a time when it faces opposition by the Iranian people at home.
A former member of the Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq, Mr Shahroudi lived in exile in Iran during the reign of Saddam Hussein and is currently aligned with the Khamenei’s camp within Iran’s religious establishment.
“Shahroudi is the favourite of Khamenei to succeed him as it was him who gave Khamenei the religious credentials to become the supreme leader. In addition, Khamenei sees Shahroudi’s link to the Iraqi Shias as a means of continuation of Iran’s influence in the neighbouring country”, an Iranian opposition member told The National.
“However, he is not necessarily the choice of Iran’s other political factions”, he said.
Iran’s campaign to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord has tried to weather the recent protests. It hosted former British foreign minister Jack Straw and other retired statesmen as the unrest unfolded.
Mr Straw told the head of Iran’s atomic organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi that the current uncertainties about the future of the nuclear deal is “due to Trump’s unstable mind”.