March 25, 2022
A court in Denmark has sentenced three leaders of an Iranian Arab secessionist group to as much as eight years in prison for terrorist acts and for spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia.
In a statement released March 2, the court in Roskilde, west of Copenhagen, announced that Habib Yabor Kabi, of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), was sentenced to eight years in prison and his brother Tamim Farouk Beck to seven years. Kabi’s son-in-law, Jacob Mohamed, a Danish citizen, was sentenced to serve six years in prison.
The men, aged 40 to 51, have been held in custody in Denmark since February 2020.
The court last month found the trio “guilty of creating an intelligence unit for a Saudi intelligence service over a period of several years” in Denmark.
They were also convicted of “promoting terrorism” for supporting the armed activities of ASMLA.
The Danish Broadcasting Corporation, which had access to materials from the closed-door trial, said the ASMLA leaders had compiled a list of 100 individuals and companies to monitor for Saudi intelligence.
The two brothers will be deported to Iran after completing their sentence, the court said. However, international law bars deporting someone to a country where he is likely to be mistreated.
ASMLA has been pushing to separate the province of Khuzestan — home to most of Iran’s Arab population — from the rest of Iran through engaging in an armed conflict against the Iranian government.
In September 2018, it claimed responsibility for an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz, Khuzestan’s provincial capital, which killed 25 people, including members of Iran’s Pasdaran and civilian bystanders, and injured 70 others.
ASMLA ringleader Habib Chaab was nabbed abroad by Iran in November 2020 and spirited into Iran by Iranian intelligence forces. He is now on trial in Tehran