October 05, 2018
France has seized assets be-Flonging to Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and two Iranian nationals in response to the June plot to bomb the Moja-hedin-e Khalq rally outside Paris.
The French government said it had no doubt that elements of the Iranian state were behind the bomb plot, which France suspects was hatched by hardliners looking to undermine President Hassan Rohani.
“An attempted attack in Villepinte [a Paris suburb] was foiled June 30. An incident of such gravity on our national territory could not go unpunished,” said a joint statement by the foreign, interior and economy ministries.
There was no immediate response to the French move from Tehran.
The plot unraveled after an Iranian diplomat accredited in Austria, Assadollah Asadi, was arrested in Germany and two other Iranians, Amir S. and his wife, Nasimeh, were detained in Belgium in possession of 500 grams (just over one pound) of explosives. Asadi was described as having recruited the Iranian couple and having supplied them with the explosives, although the amount was very small if the goal was to bomb a huge rally.
The French made the announcement of their actions October 2, one day after a court in southern Germany ruled the diplomat could be extradited to Belgium for trial. As a diplomat, Asadi enjoyed immunity from arrest in the country to which he was assigned, Austria, but no such immunity in other countries.
The asset freezes targeted two individuals identified as Assadollah Asadi and Saeid Hashemi-Moghadam, the French statement said. The Internal Security Directorate of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence was also targeted. The statement did not identify either man, but French diplomatic sources told The National of the UAE that Asadi was the arrested diplomat and Hashemi-Moghadam was the deputy minister intelligence in charge of the Internal Security Directorate.
The French government said it had acted against the “instigators, authors and accomplices” of the foiled attack.
It did not say if any actual assets were seized or if this was mainly a political action. The United States routinely freezes the assets in the United States of Iranian officials who do not have any assets in the United States.
France had warned Tehran to expect a robust response to the thwarted bombing and diplomatic relations were becoming increasingly strained.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke to their Iranian counterparts about the issue during the UN General Assembly session last month after demanding answers over Iran’s role. The daily Le Monde said France decided to take action October 2 because the Islamic Republic had not answered any of the questions about the bomb plot posed by the French.
An internal French Foreign Ministry memo in August told diplomats who are not assigned to Iran not to travel to the country, citing the Villepinte bomb plot and a toughening of Iran’s position toward the West, a Reuters news report said at the time. The Iranian Foreign Ministry denied that France had issued any such order. France made no such denial.
Paris has not named a new ambassador to Iran since the June plot, and has not responded to Tehran’s nominations for diplomatic postings in France, a diplomatic signal of disgust.
Despite France’s anger over the bomb plot, there is no sign that France has any intention of changing its support for the nuclear agreement with Iran.
