US Justice Department: Two detainees confess to spying for Iran
Two Iranian citizens who have been imprisoned in the United States for a year have confessed to spying for the Islamic Republic. The two men, one Iranian citizen and one dual national, have not yet been tried.
The US Department of Justice announced in a statement on Tuesday, November 5 (November 5), that Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, a 39-year-old Iranian-American citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, a 60-year-old Iranian citizen, have pleaded guilty to charges of collaborating with the Islamic Republic's intelligence service.
Mohammad Doostdar was a resident of Iran and admitted during interrogation that he had traveled to the United States three times from July 2017 until his arrest in December of last year.
FBI agents monitored Mohammadi Doostdar during his first trip and observed him taking photographs of the Jewish "Hillel Center" and "Chabad House" near the University of Chicago.
He then traveled to California and met with Mohammad Ghorbani, who lives there. According to the complaint filed by the prosecutor, this was the first meeting between the two.
Based on wiretapped phone conversations between the two, the FBI says that Mohammadi Doostdar informed him of the victim's missions. On this basis, two months after this meeting, the victim flew to New York for a day, where he attended a gathering of the People's Mojahedin Organization and took pictures of those present at the event.
According to the US Department of Justice, Doostdar admitted that after their first meeting, the victim expressed his willingness to work for the Islamic Republic's intelligence service.
The ministry's statement said that the gathering of the Mojahedin Organization was held in New York on September 20 with legal permission, and a number of American citizens also participated in it.
The statement quoted Jesse Liu, the District Attorney for the District of Columbia, as saying that the Islamic Republic believed it could monitor and gather information about opponents of the government by sending an agent to the United States, using an Iranian-American resident of the United States.
Taking photos and collecting information
Doostdar admitted that he met the victim again on his second trip to the United States and received photos and information from him about prominent figures participating in the New York rally. He said he paid the victim $2,000.
According to confessions and findings by the US Federal Police, the victim also traveled to Washington in May 2018 to monitor participants in a MEK rally, and Doostdar instructed him in a telephone conversation on how to deliver the photos and information collected to him in Iran.
The US Department of Justice says that the two defendants pleaded guilty to charges and confessed to spying for the Islamic Republic on October 8 of this year.
Mohammadi Doostdar's trial is scheduled to take place on December 17 and Qorbani's trial on January 15 of next year. Apparently, the two defendants confessed in an agreement with the prosecutor and in order to reduce their sentences.
Source: DW
