Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
At the evidence session on 15 March in relation
to your ongoing inquiry into the War against Terrorism, I undertook
to write to the Committee with further information.
When I appeared before the Committee, Mr Mackinlay
asked what evidence there was of the Iranian authorities directly
or indirectly bringing terrorism into Western Europe. I said that
there had been incidents in the past, and promised to provide
details.
The Iranian authorities are believed to have
been directly involved in the murder of Iranian dissidents and
opposition figures in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s.
In April 1997, a German court convicted four
men of offences relating to the September 1992 murder of the Secretary-General
of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, Sadeq Sharifkindi, and
three associates at the Mykonos cafe in Berlin. The presiding
judge said that the murders had been ordered by a "Committee
for Special Affairs" comprising the Supreme Leader of Iran
(Ali Khamenei), the President (then Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani),
the Minister of Intelligence and Security (then Ali Fallahian),
the Foreign Minister (then Ali Akbar Velayati) and representatives
of the security apparatus and other organisations responsible
for foreign policy.
Other prominent figures murdered in Europe,
allegedly with the involvement of the Iranian authorities, include
another Secretary-General of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran,
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, who was killed in Vienna in July 1989,
and Shahpour Bakhtiar, the Shah's last Prime Minister, who was
murdered in Paris in August 1991.
Iran's intelligence services were significantly
reformed during the Presidency of Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to
2005, although a number of senior figures who left the Ministry
of Intelligence during that time have returned to frontline politics
in Abmadinejad's government.
The Iranian authorities were also involved in
attempts to murder Salman Rushdie and others associated with his
book The Satanic Verses following Ruhollah Khomeini's fatwa
in February 1989.
Iran's approach changed following the election
of President Khatami. In September 1998 the then Foreign Minister
Kamal Kharrazi announced that the Iranian Government would take
no action to threaten the life of Mr Rushdie or anybody associated
with his work; nor would it encourage or assist anybody to do
so. This set in train the events that ultimately led to the restoration
of full diplomatic relations between the UK and Iran at Ambassadorial
level.
For more than two decades the Iranian authorities
have helped to fund and arm Lebanese Hizballah as well as Palestinian
Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian rejectionist groups. We have
longstanding concerns that these groups may use Western Europe
as a base for the planning of terrorist activity.
During my appearance before the Foreign Affairs
Committee I also said I would write to you about the provision
of secure prison accommodation in Afghanistan.
As I said at the meeting, the United Kingdom
is a major donor to a United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime
project to build a secure prison facility adjacent to the main
prison in Pol-i-Charki, just outside Kabul. We have provided £1.3
million towards this project, which is also supported by Canada
and Belgium. This facility will be used to house those convicted
of serious drug trafficking offences. The facility will be ready
to receive prisoners from the beginning of August. Her Majesty's
Prison Service have been advising the United Nations Office for
Drugs and Crime during the design of this facility and a team
of five UK prison officers is currently deployed to Kabul to train
three courses of 60 Afghan prison officers in high security prison
techniques. They are also training the trainers from the Afghan
prison academy.
The United States is also planning to build
a secure detention facility near Kabul airport as part of a Counter-Narcotics
Justice Centre. This facility will house suspects from the time
of their arrest to the end of their trial. If they are convicted
then they will be moved to the secure prison block within the
Counter Narcotics Justice Centre that we are helping to fund.
The Counter-Narcotics Justice Centre will also house offices for
the investigators, prosecutors and judges of the Criminal Justice
Task Force.
The Criminal Justice Task Force has national
jurisdiction to deal with serious drug offences and the Counter-Narcotics
Tribunal will operate out of a secure courthouse within the Counter-Narcotics
Justice Centre compound. We expect the Counter-Narcotics Justice
Centre to be opened early next year.
These two facilities will enable the Afghan
authorities to hold the most dangerous drug offenders. The Afghan
authorities are also currently considering their infrastructure
and training needs for the remainder of their prison estate and
we will consider what further assistance we can provide to them,
particularly in respect of increasing their capacity to house
drug offenders at provincial level.
On military engagement in Afghanistan Counter
Narcotics, our troops are being deployed in support of a UN authorised,
NATO-led mission, the International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF), and as part of the international coalition. They will
work to counter insurgency and help the appropriate authorities
build security and government institutions to continue the progress
of recent years. Above all, their presence will help the Afghans
create the environment in which economic development and institutional
reform—both essential to the elimination of the opium industry—can
take place. ISAF will be able to help with the provision of training
to Afghan counter-narcotics forces and will, within means and
capabilities, provide support to their operations. They will also
help the Afghan Government explain their policies to the Afghan
people. ISAF forces will not take part in the eradication of opium
poppy or in pre-planned and direct military action against the
drugs trade. As President Karzai has pointed out, this is a job
for the Government of Afghanistan.
I hope this answers satisfactorily your Committee's
outstanding questions.
Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
27 April 2006
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