Hon. Edi Rama,

The Prime Minister of Albania

3^rdDecember 2017

Dear Prime Minister, 

I was deeply shocked by an article about the Iranian PMOI refugees who are living in Albania, which appeared in the Huffington Post on November 21, 2017.  It was written by a well-known agent of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, Massoud Khodabandeh, who lives in the UK and is hated by many Iranians for working with the regime’s intelligence service. You may be interested to know that in January 2013 the Pentagon and the Library of Congress published a report entitled ‘Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security: A Profile.’ The report inter aliaidentified two agents recruited and trained by the MOIS in Tehran to run a demonization campaign, including launching a PMOI-defamatory website, iran-interlink.org. The Pentagon report named the two MOIS agents as Anne Singleton, a British citizen and her husband Massoud Khodabandeh.

Khodabandeh’s attempts to smear the Iranian refugees in Albania have no credibility. But what is worrying is that these allegations could become the basis for future terrorist and criminal acts against the opposition. In particular, this article reveals that his wife, Anne Singleton, was in Albania in November.

In addition to the Pentagon Report I would refer you to the British Parliamentary Committee’s 2007 research report: http://iran-freedom.org/pdf/mois.pdf, which clearly shows Anne Singleton’s involvement with Iranian Intelligence.

During several court sessions in the UK in 2007 and 2008 to investigate the egregious blacklisting of the PMOI, it was revealed that a major part of the classified documents presented by the UK Foreign Office against the PMOI had been provided by Khodabandeh and his wife. The judge ordered those files to be declassified and the subsequent “intense scrutiny” proved that all those documents were baseless and false. The court then ordered the Secretary of State to remove the PMOI from the UK blacklist of banned organisations. The court, in its vigorous ruling, described the PMOI’s proscription as have been “perverse”.   

In the many years of campaigning for human rights in Iran, we have learned that the demonisation and deliberate spreading of misinformation about the opposition by Tehran, is invariably a prelude to subsequent attacks and assassinations, which is why I am deeply concerned about these current activities. I was shocked to hear the news of the assassination of an Iranian dissident in the Netherlands recently by the Iranian regime. The victim’s family and relatives have said that traitors were involved in this terrorist crime.

It is quite clear that after the failure to kill all the Iranian dissidents in Iraq and to prevent their transfer to Albania, the regime has turned to political and security plots against them. 

On 1 March 12017, I wrote a letter to you about the conspiracies of the Iranian regime against the PMOI during the visit of the Director of the ATA news agency and wrote: “I am sure that you shall not allow the Iranian regime to misuse relations with your government to put at risk the security and dignity of the Iranian refugees as guests of your country. Tarnishing the reputation of the PMOI based on false allegations would not be desirable to the people and government of Albania, nor to the PMOI, or their international supporters.”

On 31 March 2017, five members of the US Congress, while expressing “our profound gratitude for your decision to accept a large group of Mojahedin-e-Khalq”, wrote to you: “We are concerned that the Iranian dictatorship will continue its efforts to destroy the MEK wherever in the world its members find refuge…we are alarmed by the growing activity of Iran’s regime and its proxies in the Balkans under the guise of cultural and religious activities, which are actually designed to collect intelligence and foment the spread of terrorism…we urge you to keep diligent watch over that rogue regime’s activities on Albania’s territory.”

Prime Minister, we ask you, in any way that you see fit, to put an end to the frequent and free presence of the regime’s agents, such as Anne Singleton, in Albania. Her conspiracies against the Iranian refugees are dangerous and must be stopped. This is surely also a necessity for security and calm in Albania.

Yours sincerely, 

Struan Stevenson

CC: Mr. Fatmir Xhafaj, Minister of Interior of the Republic of Albania