to decide whether or not to keep the Mojahedin-e Khalq on the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
A three-member panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia expressed exasperation that two years have passed since the same court told Clinton she must review the group’s continued place on the listing.
The court didn’t say she had to remove the group from the list, only that she had to make a decision and explain it.
The court ruling came just two weeks after US officials told The Wall Street Journal that Clinton would make her decision “no less than 60 days after the last MeK member has relocated from Camp Ashraf.” But “no less than 60 days” could mean a hundred days, a thousand days or a million days. It really was just nonsense verbiage.
After the court decision was announced Friday, the State Department issued a statement saying: “The State Department intends to comply with the Court’s opinion.” That means the decision will be issued by September 30.
In 2010, the appeals court directed Clinton to provide the organization with material relied on by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in January 2009 denying the group’s request that the terrorist designation be removed.
“Since our July 2010 remand, the secretary’s progress has been — to say the least — slow,” the appeals court said. “We have been given no sufficient reason why the secretary, in the last 600 days, has not been able to make a decision.”
If the secretary fails to take action within four months, the court will grant the Mojahedin-e Khalq’s request to set aside the terrorist designation, the ruling declared.
The appeals judges on the case were: Stephen Williams, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan; Karen LeCraft Hen-derson, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush; and David Tatel, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.
The leader of the Mojahedin, Maryam Rajavi, said the terrorist label is “illegitimate” and has acted as “the greatest factor in preserving the rule of the murderous mullah regime in Iran while causing two massacres at Camp Ashraf” in Iraq where members of the group were living.
The Mojahedin have been on the terrorist list since 1997.