Iranian spy Assadollah Assadi is on trial accused of plotting to bomb a 2018 Paris conference attended by MPs and Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Assadi is claiming diplomatic immunity and is refusing to appear in court. But lawyers claim there are “irrefutable proofs” the Tehran government gave orders to assassinate rebel leader Maryam Rajavi and slaughter her followers during the rally in Paris.
The high profile event was attended by a party of British politicians, including former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers.
Tory MPs Bob Blackman, Matthew Offord and Sir David Amess, along with Labour’s Roger Godsiff, also attended. They were part of a 35-strong British delegation.
The plot was allegedly masterminded in Tehran and put in action by Assadi, who smuggled a bomb from the capital to Vienna.
He handed the deadly device to a Brussels-based Iranian couple who were arrested by counter-terror police shortly before the rally in June 2018.
Assadi, 48, went on trial in Antwerp this week accused of attempted terrorist murder. It is the first time a diplomat has been prosecuted for terrorism in Europe.
He denies all charges and has not co-operated with investigators. The Islamic Republic of Iran – the Tehran government – has dismissed the charges against Assadi and three co-defendants.
It claims the allegations are a stunt pulled by Rajavi, the target of the alleged plot.
Ms Rajavi’s Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran is a civil party in the trial.
Georges Henri Beauthier, for the NCRI, said: “The Iran state conspires, threatens and carries on attacks and executions.
“We have irrefutable proofs that the Iranian state gave orders from Tehran and authorised the deaths of thousands of people.”
Assadi is alleged to have carried a bomb on board an Austrian Airlines flight from Tehran to Vienna. It was allegedly packed with highly unstable TATP explosives, a substance used in several terrorist atrocities including the 2017 Manchester bombing.
It would have caused carnage among the estimated 25,000 people at the rally in a north Paris suburb.
Ms Villiers said: “Sending a bomb to Europe in a diplomatic bag on a commercial flight is an outrage.
“If the court decides that is what happened it will be shocking. I feel I’ve had a lucky escape.”
Assadi is said to have handed the bomb over to Amir Saadouni, 40, and his wife Nasimeh Naami, 36, in a Pizza Hut restaurant.
Prosecutors claim the spy recruited the couple to infiltrate the dissident group.
Hiding the device in a vanity case, the couple returned to their home in a Brussels suburb, it was said.
Belgian officials were tipped off and found the bomb in their Mercedes. Experts described it as “ready to use”.
The trial continues.
