Holland recalls Iran ambassador after Tehran expels Dutch diplomats

March 6, 2019 by Leave a comment

Holland embassy IranHolland said on Monday that it had recalled its ambassador from Tehran after Iran expelled two Dutch diplomats, in a deepening dispute involving the assassination of two Dutch citizens by alleged Iranian agents. In July of last year, Holland announced its decision to expel two Iranian diplomats from The Hague, but did not explain the reason for the expulsions. In January of this year, the Dutch Foreign Ministry confirmed that the diplomatic expulsions were in retaliation to the assassination of two Dutch nationals of Iranian background. One of the victims, Mohammad-Reza Kolahi, was shot dead in the head at point-blank range by two assailants in December 2015 in Almere, a coastal town 25 miles east of Amsterdam. Nearly two years later, in November 2017, another man, Ahmad Mola Nissi, was shot in the head in broad daylight in The Hague. Both men were members of Iranian militant anti-government groups that the Iranian state accuses of terrorism and crimes against the state.

On Monday, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok informed the Dutch House of Representatives in The Hague that Tehran had informed his Ministry on February 20 that two Dutch diplomats would be expelled from Holland’s embassy in the Iranian capital. The two diplomats, who have not been named, were ordered to leave the country by Monday, March 4. Later on Monday, Bahram Ghasemi, spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that “two of the diplomats of the Netherlands embassy in Tehran were considered undesirable elements in the framework of a retaliatory measure and were asked to leave the country”. The Iranian move was not made public until last Monday. Blok wrote to the House of Representatives that, in response to Tehran’s move, the Dutch government had decided to recall its ambassador to Iran “for consultations” on how to proceed. Blok noted in his letter that Iran’s decision to expel the Dutch diplomats was “unacceptable and damaging to the bilateral relations between the two countries”.

Late on Monday, the Dutch government also summoned the Iranian ambassador in order to protest the expulsions of its diplomats from Tehran. It was also reported in the Dutch media that a series of financial sanctions imposed on Iran by Holland and its European Union partners in June —presumably over the alleged assassinations that took place on Dutch soil— would remain in place. The sanctions are against two individuals associated with Iranian military intelligence.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 March 2019 | Permalink

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Holland says Iranian spies assassinated two men on Dutch soil

January 9, 2019 by 2 Comments

Dutch Police HagueAuthorities in Holland have officially accused Iran of ordering the contract murders of two men on Dutch soil in 2015 and 2017, one of them just a block away from the Dutch foreign ministry’s headquarters. The announcement illuminates the reason behind the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats from Holland last year, which the authorities did not explain at the time.

The first of the two assassinations happened on December 15, 2015, in Almere, a coastal town located 25 miles east of Amsterdam. The victim was Mohammad-Reza Kolahi, a 56-year-old electrician who was wanted in Iran for allegedly planting a bomb in 1981. The bomb targeted the headquarters of the ruling Islamic Republican Party, killing more than 70, and is often referred to as the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in Iran’s history. Kolahi, a member of a Marxist-Islamist group calling itself the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), fled the country and was sentenced to death in absentia. He eventually married a Dutch national and acquired Dutch citizenship, changing his name to Ali Motamed. He was reportedly shot in the head at point-blank range by two assailants dressed in all black. Nearly two years later, on November 9, 2017, Ahmad Mola Nissi was also shot in the head in broad daylight by two assailants. The murder took place in the middle of the street in downtown Hague, site of Holland’s parliament and a host of international institutions. Nissi, 52, was a co-founder of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), a secessionist group that seeks an independent Arab homeland in the oil-rich southwestern regions of Iran. Tehran has claimed for decades that both groups, MEK and ASMLA, have been supported by Iraq, Israel, the United States and the European Union.

On Tuesday, Holland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stef Blok, informed the Dutch parliament that the country’s intelligence services had provided “strong evidence” that the Islamic Republic was involved in the assassinations of Kolahi and Nissi. He added that both men were Dutch citizens and that their murders on Dutch soil were “hostile actions” that directly violated Dutch sovereignty. He also revealed that the expulsions of two Iranian diplomats from Holland in June of last year were in direct response to the evidence unearthed by the Dutch intelligence services about the two murders. IntelNews readers will recall that the Dutch Foreign Ministry did not explain the reason for the expulsions when these were announced last summer. Also on Tuesday, the European Union announced the imposition of financial sanctions against two individuals associated with Iranian military intelligence, reportedly in response to Holland’s announcement.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 09 January 2019 | Research credit: M.K. | Permalink

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Dutch diplomat arrested for spying for Russia

June 27, 2012 by 14 Comments

Anna ChapmanBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Authorities in Holland have arrested a Dutch diplomat who is said to have worked for the same Russian intelligence unit that handled a group of Russian sleeper agents captured in the United States in 2010. The 60-year-old diplomat, who has been publicly identified only as Raymond P., was arrested over the weekend in The Hague following an extensive investigation by German counterintelligence. According to German newsmagazine Focus, which first aired the story on Saturday, the diplomat is believed to have given nearly 500 classified documents to Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag, two Russian intelligence officers operating in Germany. The Anschlags, who are married to each other, and are believed to be Mexican-born, were arrested in October of 2011 in the university town of Marburg in central Germany. They are thought to have moved to Germany from Mexico in 1990, using false Austrian passports supplied to them by the SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. At the time of the Anschlags’ arrest, Russian media claimed that the couple had “effectively retired” from the SVR several years ago and were being utilized mostly as message couriers. It now appears that Raymond P. was one of their informants, and that the three operated as part of the same espionage ring in Germany. Interestingly, the Anschlags were also said to be in frequent contact with Russian intelligence agent Anna Chapman (pictured), who was arrested by the FBI in the US in 2010. Chapman was part of a group of 11 Russian sleeper agents who were arrested on the same day by the FBI, and were later expelled to Russia. Read more of this post

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FROM OUR ARCHIVES: Charles Taylor was not acting alone

July 16, 2009 by 6 Comments

Charles Taylor

Charles Taylor

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As former Liberian President Charles Taylor becomes the first African leader to stand trial for war crimes, it is worth remembering that the 61-year old father of 14 was not acting alone. Taylor, who headed the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), became the country’s President in 1997. He is currently being tried at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, accused of indescribable violations of human rights, which he allegedly committed during his 14-year rule. He is also accused of conspiring to foment the brutal civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone, which he allegedly funded through the Liberian diamond trade. But as I explained last February, Taylor’s diamond smuggling was facilitated by Roger D’Onofrio Ruggiero, an Italian-American 40-year veteran of the CIA, who worked with Taylor and others to channel diamonds into Europe through a number of front-companies. Taylor was also assisted by Ibrahim Bah, a Senegalese who in the 1970s and 1980s was funded by the CIA to join the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet Red Army. It is unlikely, however, that Charles Taylor’s prosecutors at The Hague will be calling on these two witnesses during the trial. Witnesses aside, however, Charles Taylor’s trial may prove to be interesting on numerous levels. Yesterday, for instance, he told the court that his 1985 “escape” from the US maximum security Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts, which allowed him to return to Liberia and take over the country through a military coup, took place with US government assistance.

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Comment: Former Serb head spy was CIA collaborator

March 2, 2009 by 5 Comments

Jovica Stanišić

Jovica Stanišić

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
From 1990 until 1998, Jovica Stanišić was the Director of Serbia’s State Security Service, a notorious intelligence unit operating within Serbia’s Interior Ministry. As intelligence chief for Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, Stanišić was responsible for thousands of agents, who were seen as forming the core of Milošević’s security state. In 2003, following the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, who had extradited Milošević to The Hague, Stanišić was arrested and delivered to The Hague. He is currently being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for his role in war crimes during the Yugoslav Wars. Jovica Stanišić has denied any wrongdoing and, remarkably, his defense rests on his claim that he was in fact “the CIA’s man in Belgrade” from 1991 until 1998.

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