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Alleged Defector Is MKO Member, Iran Says
Iran has claimed the reported defector Ahmad Behbahani who accused Tehran of masterminding the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was a member of the outlawed Mujaheddin Khalq Organization (MKO).
In a statement released on Wednesday night, the Intelligence Ministry said Behbahani, whose real name is Shahram Beladi Behbahani and was born in 1968, was sentenced to imprisonment in late 1990 for being involved in an armed robbery, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Thursday.
Behbahani illegally left Iran and sought for political asylum in Iraq, the statement said, adding that during his stay in Iraq he joined the MKO and received espionage training for seven years. Under the supervision of the International Red Cross Committee, the Iraqi government handed him over to Iran on March 31, 1998 and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he confessed to cooperation with the MKO, the statement said.
The MKO, the main political and military opposition group based in Iraq, has launched a series of attacks on Iranian interests since it broke away with the Iranian government.
Behbahani escaped from Iran to Turkey on a temporary leave from prison, the ministry added.
The American CBS television broadcast on Sunday that Behbahani, who claimed to have been former head of Iran's foreign terrorism activities, said Iran planned and carried out the 1988 bombing of the Pan-American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people died.
Behbahani, living in a foreign asylum seekers camp in Turkey, said that he had been responsible for all "terrorist" operations carried out by the Iranian government beyond its borders until he had crossed the border to Turkey four months ago following a rift with his colleagues.
He said a group of Libyans received 90 days of training in Iran to carry out the bombing after he persuaded to Ahmad Jibril, who heads a Syrian-backed armed group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, into accepting the plan.
However, Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi soon denied any link between his ministry and Behbahani and said that since the establishment of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, no person named Ahmad Behbahani has been working with the ministry.
Following the CBS report, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA) had been interviewing Behbahani for the past several days. Some U.S. intelligence agents have expressed skepticism over his claims.
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