Iran’s Borderless Search for Opposition Figures – NRK Norway – Summary of news from different parts of the country

Time and again, it has been revealed how Iran operates to defeat the regime’s opposition also outside the country’s borders.

The story of the Norwegian-Iranian who received police protection after being approached by a person pretending to represent the Mossad is not unique.

Key defectors from the Iranian regime have repeatedly said how it goes. Just over ten years ago, Iran’s consul in Norway, Mohammed Reza Heydari, resigned.

He told in detail about the activity that was organized from the Iranian embassy at Drammensveien 88 in Oslo.

– They map and collect information on dissidents and send the information to the intelligence service in Iran. Agents infiltrate environments and threaten families both in Norway and in their home country, Heydari said.

Also pro israelis

But it is not only opponents of the regime who are being persecuted. In 2016, Norwegian police spied on an Iranian intelligence agent who had been sent to Norway on a very special mission.

According to TV 2, the scouts followed the agent from the moment he landed in Gardermoen until he was standing in the garden of an ethnic Norwegian man who is central to an organization friendly to Israel. There he was arrested by PST.

He left Norway as soon as he was exposed.

Diplomat expelled

In October 1993, Aschehoug editor William Nygaard was shot outside his own home.

Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini had passed a death sentence against the author Salman Rushdie and his editors and translators.

Aschehoug had published the book. Police suspected that people with connections to the embassy in Oslo had participated in the murder, but it was never proven.

Following the assassination attempt, the surveillance of the Iranian embassy community was dramatically intensified.

The intensification of surveillance led to the revelation of the activity of diplomat Mohammad Movahed in March 1994. He worked to give passports and visas to compatriots, but recruited several of them as messengers and informants.

It was learned that several Iranians who had been granted asylum in Norway actually worked for the regime and infiltrated opposition circles.

When this was revealed, Movahed was deported from Norway. This is one of the few cases in which diplomats from Norway have been deported for pioneering refugees.

Assassination plans?

The police surveillance service revealed in 1996 that an Iranian diplomat had operated in several cases under a false name and identity.

Her real name was Saberi Moghaddam. He was particularly interested in a speaking tour that the exiled Iranian politician Fereshteh Yaganeh was going to participate in in Norway.

It was the LO National Schools Association that invited her, as she was very active in the Iranian resistance movement in Paris.

The interpreter pretended to be an opponent who would help during the tour.

The Police Surveillance Service suspected that it was in fact a case of assassination schemes and the lecture tour was canceled. The interpreter was declared unwanted in Norway and did not get a visa here the next time he applied.

It was also revealed that he had repeatedly given a false name when calling Norwegian parliamentary representatives.

Assassination of the prime minister

The reason for the suspicion was a long series of murders in Europe that were demonstrably carried out by agents working for the Iranian regime.

In 1989, three prominent members of the Kurdish Democratic Party were assassinated in Austria while negotiating with official Iranian representatives.

The following year, Iranian opponent Kazem Rajavi was assassinated outside Geneva, and in 1991, the former Prime Minister of Iran, Shapour Bakhtiar, was assassinated in France.

In all of these cases, there were clear indications pointing to the Iranian authorities and the Iranian embassies.

Mykonos Massacre

In 1992, the brutality was even clearer. After a meeting of the Socialist International in Berlin where Gro Harlem Brundtland was elected deputy leader, the Iranian delegation was to have a closing dinner at the Mykonos Restaurant in Berlin.

Suddenly, two men with machine guns stormed the restaurant and massacred the four Iranians.

The trial lasted three years and 176 witnesses were summoned. Several of them were key defectors from the Iranian regime. The evidence was so strong that the German prosecutor’s office issued an arrest warrant for Iranian Information Minister Ali Fallahian.

The verdict was unequivocal and clear:

Those in power in Iran were responsible for the actions of the assassination command. Four people were convicted of carrying out the actual massacre, one Iranian and three Lebanese with strong ties to Hezbollah.

Steady state terror

Many believed that the Iranian authorities would curtail terrorist activity in Europe after the clear verdict in Germany in 1997.

But that was not the case. Activity has continued and opposition figures have been caught off guard.

In the interview with NRK, PST confirms that in their open threat assessments they have repeatedly singled out Iran as a country engaged in pioneering refugee and active intelligence activities in Norway.