Paris Court of Appeal turned down appeal against verdict to end prosecution on financial allegations against members of the Resistance
In a sentence this Thursday morning, 5 February 2015, the Paris Court of Appeals Investigative Branch rejected the appeal against verdict to end prosecution on all financial allegations against members and affiliates of the Iranian Resistance. The trial that looked into this request had been held on January 8. Prior to this, the Paris Prosecutor had also declared opposition to this request and had urged the court to turn it down.
On 16 September 2014, the counterterrorism investigative magistrate repealed all financial allegations against members of the Resistance that had originated from a political deal between the then French government and Iran’s clerical regime and issued a conclusive order to end all prosecution in this file. Prior, in 2011, the investigative magistrate had also issued a verdict to end prosecution of all allegations related to terrorism and bankrolling of terrorism.
After this verdict of cessation of prosecution, the clerical regime, faced with its 15-year investment in this file going down the drain, in a disgraceful and infamous act, appealed this verdict on behalf of a dead person. This person, who in 2003 entered this case as a civil party at the encouragement of Judge Bruguiere, abused a similarity of names to claim that his name has been exploited.
Registering this appeal on behalf of this person in September 2014 was while the British High Court had confirmed in September 2012 that this individual had died in 2005 and had authorized distribution of his property amongst his heirs.
In the face of undeniable evidence presented by the Iranian Resistance lawyers, a French attorney and agent of the regime by the name of Paul Gelinas who had registered the appeal on behalf of the dead person, in his letter of 9 December 2014 wrote to the prosecutor: “Since 2005 I had no news on Mr. Abdolrazaghi. In the afternoon of Thursday, 25 September 2014, a law professor from University of Tehran, Dr. Noory, along with Mr. Morteza Zahraie, an attorney in Tehran, came to see me. That same day, they introduced me to Mr. Dominique Inchauspe a penal attorney in the Paris Bar Association. Despite great reluctance, the next morning, on Friday September 26, I went to the Paris Court of Appeals with attorney Inchauspe to place the appeal. At that moment nobody indicated to me that Mr. Abdolrazaghi may have been dead.”
Mr. William Bourdon, attorney of the National Council of Resistance, in a note to the prosecutor emphasized that an appeal on behalf of a dead person is unacceptable and reminded that “Beyond this inadmissibility, the appeal fits well in the framework of maneuvers made by the Iranian authorities and emissaries in this file from the outset. In fact, this maneuver was the subject of different notes addressed to the investigating magistrate at that time; numerous witnesses that apparently without any introduction and with relative spontaneity presented themselves to the police services were actually Iranian government emissaries. We also know that the Paris prosecutor, in addition to other administrative and state entities, were relentlessly approached by the Iranian government to try to influence the process. Therefore, this appeal illustrates yet another attempt to manipulate and misuse the French judicial system by a foreign government.”
He went on to conclude: “It is also extremely worrying to understand, by demonstrating once again that the Iranian regime strives to exploit the legal proceedings in France to be used for purposes of propaganda and to discredit its opponents and to imagine as is quite likely, that through this private civil suit, a full access to the file without any restriction was given to the Ministry of Intelligence of this regime.”
In a further disgrace, attorney Dominique Inchauspe who works for the clerical regime’s agents and paid hands in Paris, on the day prior to the court’s opening, placed a new request on behalf of the deceased claimant’s sisters in Iran Jahan Abdolrazaghi, 82, and Moluk Abdolrazaghi, 71, claiming that “the use of their family name for many years and to this day by one or more members of an organization that for a long time has been in the list of terrorist organizations in the European Union and the United States causes them immediate, personal and direct harm that makes it admissible for them to complain as civil parties.” This is while the investigative magistrate, as supported by specific evidence, had already rejected the allegation of abusing the name of that individual. Bringing up this contemptible appeal was nothing but a wishful attempt to once again exploit the French judiciary and continue to fabricate a financial case against members of the Iranian Resistance.
In response to these attempts, attorney Bernard Dartevelle wrote to attorney Gelinas:
“The process of hiding your knowledge of the death of your client cannot fool anyone as:
– You yourself admit not to have had any contact with your client a few months before his death.
– You do not hide that your client had two children through whom the confirmation of his death could have been obtained without any difficulty, particularly since judging from the documents you produce to the court, you seem to have an extraordinary possibility to obtain assistance from the Iranian government authorities.
– You pretended that you are registering the two sisters of the deceased as civil parties, which means – we would hope – that you have had contact with them and it is obvious that they themselves could have informed you about the reality of the death of their brother. It appears to me therefore that maintaining this appeal and the willingness to defend it … are initiatives that seem incompatible with the normal exercise of a lawyer.”
Mr. Dartevelle emphasized: “I would like to inform you that my clients have asked me to file a complaint against an attempted fraud regarding the judgment of the court.”
Therefore, there is no doubt whatsoever that the perpetrator of the June 17, 2003 file against the Iranian resistance, from the onset and in its entirety, has been the religious fascism ruling Iran that in collusion with the then French government and through the employment of its mercenaries and manipulating the French Judiciary as a tool resorted to suppress its legitimate opposition and bent backwards to prevent the closure of this file.
The Iranian Resistance demands the prosecution, trial and punishment of the perpetrators of this extensive abuse of the French Judiciary and of putting an end to this dirty play of dealing with the criminals ruling in Tehran at the expense of victimizing the Iranian people. For years, these dirty deals have only diverted attentions from the mullahs’ regime as the main epicenter of export of fundamentalism and terrorism in today’s world with its catastrophic consequences for regional and global peace and security is evident in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and even Europe.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is a broad coalition of democratic Iranian organisations, groups, and personalities, founded in 1981 in Tehran, committed to a secular democratic republic in Iran, based on the separation of religion and state. The Iranian opposition NCRI revealed the Iranian regime’s clandestine nuclear weapons programme in 2002.