BERLIN – The Austrian capital is a main European hub for Tehran’s spy network,
the US-based Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress concluded in
December in a comprehensive report on Iranian intelligence
activities.
The report was conducted with the Combating Terrorism
Technical Support Office’s Irregular Warfare Support Program and unleashed a
flurry of reports in the Austrian media last week.
According to the US
study, “Vienna... is allegedly full of MOIS [Iranian Ministry of Intelligence
and Security] agents. It is because of the continuous good relationship between
Iran and Austria since the Revolution – after the US hostage crisis – which
resulted in condemnation of the Islamic Republic by many countries and secluded
Iran in many ways. Austria was one of the few countries that was not
concerned.”
“It appears that Iran takes advantage of this relationship by
deploying its intelligence officers in Austria. It has been reported that MOIS
agents identify anti–Islamic Republic political activists and threaten to
silence them,” the report said.
The MOIS is responsible for suppressing
dissent in the Islamic Republic among opposition groups and among the large
diaspora Iranian community, according to Iranian dissidents and experts. Iranian
reform groups consider the MOIS a ruthless apparatus of Iran’s
government.
In response to a query from The Jerusalem Post on Sunday,
Karl-Heinz Grundböck, a spokesman for Austria’s Interior Ministry, wrote via
email that the domestic intelligence agency Verfassungsschutz cannot issue a
comment beyond the information contained in the agency’s report, and referred
the Post to the agency’s intelligence analysis.
According to the most
recent report, “In the period under review, concrete proliferation [and]
relevant activities were observed in connection with North Korea and Iran. Some
of these activities ended in convictions.”
The report further noted that,
“it can be assumed that these developments will continue in 2012 and that the
conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran will intensify.”
Iranian
dissident groups and experts say the Austrian authorities permit Iran’s
intelligence agents wide movement in Vienna, including the ability to operate
money laundering operations and acquire technology for Tehran’s nuclear weapons
program.
Iranian agent Hamid Reza Amirinia, a senior departmental
director from Iran’s Center for Innovation and Technology Cooperation, was the
subject of media reports last year because of his alleged money laundering in
Vienna. The US Treasury Department has sanctioned both the agent and the Iranian
center for illicit nuclear proliferation activity.
In an interview with
the Post, Dr. Wahied Wahdat- Hagh, a prominent German- Iranian scholar in the
Federal Republic, questioned “why Europe’s intelligence agencies do not actively
take action against the deadly spies of Iran’s dictator.”
Wahdat-Hagh, a
senior fellow with the Brussels-based European Foundation for Democracy, said
Iran’s spies threaten opposition groups in exile and plan potential murder
operations targeting Iranian dissidents in Europe. “The Iranian espionage
activities are so powerful because they know that the European countries
tolerate them,” commented Wahdat-Hagh.
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