Netherlands: The Islamic Republic Involved in Planning Two Assassinations on Dutch Soil

On Tuesday, January 8, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok stated that the Islamic Republic government was involved in the planning of two assassinations in the Netherlands, which had previously led to sanctions against Iran. This accusation from the Dutch minister comes just hours after the Danish Foreign Minister announced that the European Union had agreed to impose sanctions on one of Iran's intelligence agencies due to 'planning assassinations on European soil.' In a letter to the Dutch Parliament, the foreign minister wrote that the Dutch intelligence service has 'serious evidence' indicating Iran's involvement in the assassination attempts against two Dutch citizens of Iranian descent, one in Almere in 2015 and another in The Hague in 2017. The Dutch official noted that on Tuesday, 'Iranian officials' were warned about this matter. The letter did not mention the names of these officials. On Tuesday, Iranian officials were also warned that such 'unacceptable' actions must be 'immediately' stopped. On December 15, 2015, an individual named Ali Motamed was shot in the street in Almere and died the same day in the hospital. In this regard, a trial for two suspects in his murder was held for the first time in June this year in the city of Lelystad, and Dutch media reported that Ali Motamed was 'most likely' the same Mohammad Reza Kolahi Samadi, a member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization and the main perpetrator of the explosion at the Islamic Republic Party building. In that explosion, which occurred on June 28, 1981, several high-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic, including Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, the then head of the Supreme Court, were killed. According to Dutch media reports, the '28-year-old and 35-year-old' suspects in this case are 'recidivist criminals' in the Netherlands. On November 8 of last year, an Iranian citizen named Ahmad Mola Abunahad, known as Ahmad Nissi, founder of the 'Al-Ahwaz Liberation Movement,' was killed in front of his residence in The Hague. In this context, the Dutch intelligence and security service reported on Friday, July 6, that two Iranian embassy staff members had been expelled from the Netherlands about a month prior. In response to this action, Bahram Qasemi, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, described the expulsion of the two Iranian embassy staff members as 'unconstructive,' 'unfriendly,' 'illogical,' and 'lacking legal legitimacy,' and announced that the ministry had summoned the Dutch ambassador following this incident. The Islamic Republic has not yet reacted to these new accusations and the new European sanctions.