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PARIS – A Belgian husband and wife of Iranian descent were accused of plotting to bomb a rally organized last week in France by an Iranian opposition group in exile, said Monday the Belgian authorities
. Amir S., 38, and Nasimeh N., 33, were arrested Saturday in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe, a district of Brussels, according to a statement by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor's Office and its Federal Intelligence and Security Agency.
The statement said the couple was suspected of having planned Saturday to bomb a rally of the People's Mojahedin, a group that advocates the overthrow of Iran's rulers. The group, known as the WIPO, had long been on the Foreign State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, but was removed in 2012 after intense lobbying efforts.
About 25,000 people attended the rally entitled "Free Iran 2018 – The Alternative". in a convention center in Villepinte, a northeastern suburb of Paris
The MEK, sometimes described as a marginal and cult organization, is scorned in Iran for its alliance with the overthrown Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But several American personalities have touted it as a viable alternative to Iran's rulers, including President Trump's close allies, like John R. Bolton, his national security advisor.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, and Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House, both spoke at the rally, Mr. Gingrich the appellant "awesome and emotionally powerful" on Twitter .
The couple suspected of plotting the attack was arrested on Saturday in their Mercedes, the Belgian authorities said in their statement. In the car, the police found a "small toilet bag" containing about 500 grams, or a little more than a pound, of triacetone triperoxide, an explosive craft called TATP, as well as a "mechanism". # 39; ignition ".
were charged with attempted terrorist murder and preparing for a terrorist offense, the statement said. He added that the police had raided five houses in and around the Belgian cities of Brussels, Antwerp, Mons and Leuze-en-Hainaut as part of the deal, but that They could not divulge the results of the research. The provisional state of the investigation shows that there has never been a direct threat to Belgium, "the statement said, noting that the arrests were made possible thanks to the co-operation between the Belgian, French and German authorities
France on Saturday as part of the plot foiled, but only one was still in detention Monday night, according to a French magistrate, who spoke on condition of anonymity in agreement with the official policy.
The official did not identify those who had been arrested, merely saying that they had been placed in police custody to "clarify" the potential links with the couple arrested in Belgium. and that two of them had been released for lack of incriminating evidence.The declaration of the Belgian authorities identified the suspect still held in France as Merhad A., 54, an alleged accomplice of the couple.
An Iranian diplomat of 46 years working at the Austrian Embassy in Vienna was also arrested in Germany. as a contact for the couple. He was identified as Assadollah A.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based group that organized the rally and is dominated by the MEK, blamed the Iranian government for the conspiracy.
"The clerical regime's terrorists in Belgium, with the help of the regime's diplomats, had plotted this attack," Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement.
Javad Zarif, the Iranian Foreign Minister, replied on Twitter that Iran "unequivocally condemns any violence and terror anywhere, and is ready to work with all parties concerned to discover what is an ominous false flag ploy. "
The MEK was founded in Iran as a dissident group that targeted the shah regime and then religious clerics who overthrew it with terrorist attacks in the 1970s. He also targeted Americans and was on the State Department's List of Terrorist Organizations from 1997 to 2012. The group is composed mainly of Iranian exiles living in the United States. United or Europe.
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