Iran accuses America of terror smear campaign

IRAN has complained to the United Nations over an American claim that one of its agents plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US, claiming the alleged plotter is really a member of a rebel Iranian group opposed to Tehran.

Foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday the plot was part of an American campaign to smear Iran, a process he said would continue next week when the UN publishes a report western diplomats have claimed will contain new evidence about Iran’s nuclear programme.

The complaint to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeks to turn the US accusation that Tehran supports terrorism back onto Washington. “This letter contains our complaint about the plots of the United States, reliable information that we have of the US involvement in those plots,” Salehi said.

It has been reported the letter said a suspect, who American prosecutors have identified as an Iranian military official, is actually a member of the exiled Iranian rebel group Mujahideen Khalq Organisation (MKO).

One of two men charged with plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, 56-year-old Iranian-American second-hand car dealer Manssor Arbabsiar, pleaded not guilty at a court hearing in New York last month.

The second, Gholam Shakuri, is still at large. US officials claim he is a member of the Quds Force, an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who approved the plan to hire Mexican gangsters to murder Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir.

The semi-official Mehr news agency reported on 17 October that Shakuri was a member of the MKO, also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, based in Iraq and listed as a terrorist group by the US. Citing “informed sources”, Mehr said Shakuri had travelled to Washington and to the MKO base at Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Iranian officials did not initially comment on the report, which said Interpol had discovered Shakuri’s true identity.