Terrorist MKO supporters confess in US

The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials as well as Iraqis.

Seven Iranian-Americans confess collecting money for anti-Iran terrorists loyal to the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO).

 

The MKO is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by many international entities and countries, including the US.

"With jury selection in the case underway, the seven defendants each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and one count of actually providing material support to the group," AFP quoted a statement released by the Justice Department.

The seven face up to 20 years in jail over the charges, after having been indicted for the first time by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles in 2001.

They are to be sentenced on August 10. The court says they had helped the MKO by raising funds for its members at public places like the Los Angeles International Airport.

The group, which identifies itself as a Marxist-Islamist guerilla army, was founded in Iran in the 1960s but was exiled some twenty years later for performing acts of terrorism in the country.

The terrorists are especially notorious for taking sides with former dictator Saddam Hussein during the war Iraq imposed on Iran (1980-1988).

The MKO is responsible for numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials as well as Iraqis.

Baghdad has vowed to move MKO members to their country Iran or to send them to a third country, as it holds the anti-Iran group responsible for destabilizing Iraq.

Earlier in March, Iraqi national security advisor, Muwafaq al-Rubaie, described MKO members as "foreign terrorists" and ordered them to leave their headquarters in Camp Ashraf, where they had been stationed for more than two decades.

"The residents should understand … that their days in Iraq are numbered and we are literally counting down," al-Rubaie told reporters.

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