Iraqi Minister of Justice Hassan al-Shammari says the Islamic Republic of Iran can demand the extradition of members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
On Sunday, Shammari stated that under an agreement signed between Iran and Iraq on the swap of prisoners and criminals, Tehran can ask Baghdad to extradite MKO members.
He further noted that Iraq will hand the terrorists over to Iran should the Islamic Republic ask for their extradition.
On February 19, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called on the United Nations (UN) to speed up efforts to relocate MKO members.
Zebari further noted that the Baghdad government has recently made a financial contribution of half a million dollars to a trust fund proposed by the UN chief to cover the costs related to the MKO relocation.
In a press release on December 27, 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the agency and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) had relocated 311 out of 3,200 residents of the Camp Hurriya (Liberty) to third countries.
In December 2011, the UN and Baghdad agreed to relocate some 3,000 MKO members from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, to the former US-held Camp Hurriya.
The last group of the MKO terrorists was evicted by the Iraqi government in September 2013 and relocated to Camp Hurriya to await potential relocation to other countries.
The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and has committed numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis.
The group fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it received now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s support and set up Camp Ashraf near the Iranian border.
Mojahedin-e Khalq leave the country. EU spokesman Michael Mann told the Iran Times the EU has, over several years, given various UN agencies 14 million euros (about $19 million today) to help them interview and register the Mojahedin members, but has not yet given any money to support the group’s relocation since that is an issue for individual member states. So far, Germany has offered to accept 125 Mojahedin members and Albania 220.
rabic-language website Voice of Russia, in her meeting with the Iraqi minister of Human Rights, head of the European Union Delegation in Iraq Ambassador Jana Hybáškova, said the EU plans to allocate 22 million euros for the relocation of MKO members outside Iraq in order to respond to Iraq’s requests.
and PMOI) failed in their attempt to run away from a hospital near the group’s transient settlement facility, Camp Liberty, near the Iraqi capital.
media attacks against the Iraqi army’sas intervention in the country’s internal affairs.
or prolonging the presence of the MKO members in Iraq.
The U.S. Embassy also said McGurk visited Friday with members of Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, the militant wing of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose camp outside Baghdad came under rocket attack last month. The statement said the U.S. diplomat stressed the urgency of relocating the residents of Camp Hurriya to another country.
din-e Khalq Organization (MKO) was declared by the US state department to be a designated foreign terrorist organization in 1997. For decades the group has committed acts of terrorism against Iranians both inside Iran and around the world. During the Iraq-Iran war, the group aligned with former dictator Saddam Hussein, and with Iraqi support, slaughtered countless Iranian civilians. According to Human Rights Watch, the MKO is known to torture people, often dragging its victims by ropes from tied around their necks.