Louis Freeh, former Director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be with you again at a very important meeting at a very critical time in the struggle for freedom and liberty in Iran. Mrs. Rajavi, congratulations to you again, and thanks for your leadership, your courage, and your persistence. And to all of your colleagues who are fighting a fight, which will ultimately result in victory in one which inspires us, not only my American colleagues who join me, but as many, many hundreds of thousands of Americans who support your struggle for freedom. I want to particularly add the support of Governor Tom Bridge, one of your dearest friends and most ardent supporters who can’t be with us this year but I know I speak for him when I convey his strong support and his encouragement to continue this fight. I want to echo the remarks of my colleagues, particularly Judge McKay and Senator Lieberman, and address my thanks and also some of my brief remarks to the 1000s and 1000s of brave freedom fighters in Ashraf 3 but also in Iran, who hear these words, and we hope, take confidence and take vision from the support that you have all over the world, not just in this virtual meeting.
A couple of points that I wanted to make. The world has been hobbled in many unprecedented ways by the COVID pandemic. But the results of this awful disease in Iran particularly highlights the ineffectiveness of the regime. But maybe more importantly, for the purposes of our remarks, the disregard that this regime has, not just for human rights, but for the health rights and the living of its own people, the people that it purports to represent, but as we know from the election does not represent them. We saw reports just the other day of tens of thousands of Iranians going into Armenia to receive vaccinations, country of 84 billion people, where the vaccinations are not only completely dysfunctional in terms of administration, but the Supreme Leader, of course, outlawed any vaccines from the United States or the UK, which is not just putting policy ahead of human life, but putting lunacy ahead of governance and responsibility.
The fifth wave, they’re now in Iran, we’re told by reliable sources, has affected the capital in 143 cities. In the last two weeks, the average daily caseload has risen 62% with only 2% of the population vaccinated fully. So, Iranians are voting with their feet going to Armenia, a country of 3 million people to get the vaccinations. And this is just a more current example of some of the points that my colleagues have made. The election of Raisi, who is a documented suspect in war crimes, but also crimes against humanity, against the Iranian people. The accountability, which Madame Rajavi, spoke about before your remarks, has to be addressed at this level. And we also praise the courage, moral courage and political courage of the Slovenian Prime Minister for taking this up. And as you know, we’ve been talking about this for a number of years. The documentation of crimes against humanity by this regime is voluminous and available publicly in many cases on the internet with photographs, with social media, with witnesses. And whether we were talking about the National Socialists at the end of World War II or other criminal regimes, the International Committee particularly it’s legal community, and the responsible heads of states all over the world should portion, I believe, will push very strongly for accountability and for bringing people to justice, who have committed atrocious crimes, not only against their own people but against others.
This regime has been waging a war of terror against its perceived enemies overseas. And just citing the Asadi cases as one more recent example, where the perpetrators were caught red handed, as we say, in the sentences that were meted out to the poor individuals don’t account for or reflect the complicity of state level sponsorship and planning that went into that attack, which targeted on Rajavi, but also all the freedom fighters and all of its supporters.
The other point I just wanted to mention is, as you know, we recently memorialize the 25th anniversary of the Khobar Towers bombings, the 1996 attack against the United States of America, as well as hundreds and hundreds of Saudis who killed. That wasn’t even just an act of terrorism, it was an act of war against the United States. And our government should keep that in mind as it tries to renegotiate a new, hopefully not the same pack that we saw in 2015. But these are, as you know, criminal charges, which are launched in the United States against a whole hierarchy of Iranian participants and put in the IRGC. Beyond the 19 Americans who were killed, as I said, hundreds and hundreds of Saudis were killed and wounded. There’s never been any accountability for that. The United States has a criminal indictment, which is filed, but which needs to be satisfied by warrants, arrests, and the prosecution of the people involved. The same with the regime later. There has to be international accountability. And the advantage that we have there is looking past the regime. There’s a plethora of credible available evidence, almost like a documentation center in Ashraf 3 and other places in Paris and your headquarters, where this evidence can be mustered and amassed and presented in a fair and credible way, so there can be accountability, not just for the 1988 massacre, but a series of war crimes.
The current president takes pride and his leadership of, not a prosecution, but a pogrom of persecution of thousands and thousands of MEK freedom fighters who were arrested and killed. He says, “I’m proud that in my role as a prosecutor, wherever I was, I have always defended people’s rights, security and tranquility.” Well, of course, nothing could be further than the truth. And if that’s a defense, it ought to be tested in an International Court of Justice against the evidence and the testimony that will be brought to bear and which is available.
So, to our friends and our heroes, not just in Ashraf, but in Iran today, we have to keep in mind and believe we will keep in mind this perspective, which is a long view, but a critical accountability issue which has to be addressed. And we will have the means and the will to do it. And it will be the final act of justice against the regime that has abandoned any notion of justice. Thank you very much.