PARIS: France on Thursday rejected Iranian accusations that it backs an exiled opposition group that was the possible target of a bomb plot near Paris last week, saying an investigation would determine the real sponsors of the planned attack.
Iran's foreign ministry on Tuesday summoned envoys from France, Germany and Belgium in protest at the arrest of an Iranian diplomat in Germany in connection with the alleged plan to bomb the annual National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) rally on the outskirts of Paris on June 30.
It also accused France of supporting the group, which seeks the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and is classified by Tehran as a terrorist organisation.
The French foreign ministry confirmed on Thursday that its ambassador had been summoned on July 3 following the rally, but dismissed any suggestion that it supported the NCRI.
Iranian authorities "were reminded that France supports neither the ideology, objectives nor activities of the PMOI. However, having been removed from the European list of terrorist organisations, this organisation can carry out, like any other association, activities, as long as they do not undermine public order", a French diplomatic source told Reuters.
French judicial sources said on Wednesday they had received a request from Belgium to extradite a man of Iranian origin who was arrested in Paris on suspicion of links to the plot.
Belgium is investigating two Belgians of Iranian origin arrested on Saturday. Five hundred grams of the homemade explosive TATP and a detonation device were found in their car, according to Belgian investigators.
An Austria-based Iranian diplomat is also being held in Germany in connection with the alleged bomb plot.
"On the planned attack at Villepinte (just outside Paris), an investigation is in progress. It will have to determine the real sponsors of this projected attack," the French diplomatic source said.
Iran has said it had nothing to do with the plot, which it called as a "false flag" operation staged by figures within the NCRI, an umbrella bloc of opposition exiles that seek an end to almost 40 years of Shi'ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran.
French officials have declined comment on the matter saying its nature is unclear and extremely sensitive.
The People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran is the main component of NCRI. The group, also known by its Persian name Mujahideen-e-Khalq, was once listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union but not since 2012.
Tehran has long called for a crackdown on the NCRI in Paris, Riyadh, and Washington. The group is regularly criticised in state media.
France rejects Iranian accusation it backs Paris-based opposition group
France rejects Iranian accusation it backs Paris-based opposition group
- France on Thursday rejected Iranian accusations that it backs an exiled opposition group that was the possible target of a bomb plot near Paris last week.
- Iranian authorities "were reminded that France supports neither the ideology, objectives nor activities of the PMOI”.
Italian suspect questioned over Bosnia ‘weekend sniper’ killings
- The octogenarian former truck driver from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy, is suspected by Milan prosecutors of “voluntary homicide aggravated by abject motives,” according to Italian news agency ANSA
ROME: An 80-year-old man suspected of being a “weekend sniper” who paid the Bosnian Serb army to shoot civilians during the 1990s siege of Sarajevo was questioned Monday in Milan, media reported.
The octogenarian former truck driver from the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy, is suspected by Milan prosecutors of “voluntary homicide aggravated by abject motives,” according to Italian news agency ANSA.
Lawyer Giovanni Menegon told journalists that his client had answered questions from prosecutors and police and “reaffirmed his complete innocence.”
In October, prosecutors opened an investigation into what Italian media dubbed “weekend snipers” or “war tourists“: mostly wealthy, gun-loving, far-right sympathizers who allegedly gathered in Trieste and were taken to the hills surrounding Sarajevo where they fired on civilians for sport.
During the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo that began in April 1992 some 11,541 men, women and children were killed and more than 50,000 people wounded by Bosnian Serb forces, according to official figures.
Il Giornale newspaper reported last year that the would-be snipers paid Bosnian Serb forces up to the equivalent of €100,000 ($115,000) per day to shoot at civilians below them.
The suspect — described by the Italian press as a hunting enthusiast who is nostalgic for Fascism — is said to have boasted publicly about having gone “man hunting.”
Witness statements, particularly from residents of his village, helped investigators to track the suspect, freelance journalist Marianna Maiorino said.
“According to the testimonies, he would tell his friends at the village bar about what he did during the war in the Balkans,” said Maiorino, who researched the allegations and was herself questioned as part of the investigation.
The suspect is “described as a sniper, someone
who enjoyed going to Sarajevo to kill people,” she added.
The suspect told local newspaper Messaggero Veneto Sunday he had been to Bosnia during the war, but “for work, not for hunting.” He added that his public statements had been exaggerated and he was “not worried.”
The investigation opened last year followed a complaint filed by Italian journalist and writer Ezio Gavanezzi, based on allegations revealed in the documentary “Sarajevo Safari” by Slovenian director Miran Zupanic in 2022.
Gavanezzi was contacted in August 2025 by the former mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karic, who filed a complaint in Bosnia in 2022 after the same documentary was broadcast.
The Bosnia and Herzegovina prosecutor’s office confirmed on Friday that a special war crimes department was investigating alleged foreign snipers during the siege of Sarajevo.
Bosnian prosecutors requested information from Italian counterparts at the end of last year, while also contacting the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, it said. That body performs some of the functions previously carried out by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Sarajevo City Council adopted a decision last month authorizing the current mayor, Samir Avdic, to “join the criminal proceedings” before the Italian
courts, in order to support Italian prosecutors.
