TIRANA: Albania said Wednesday it has expelled two Iranian diplomats for security reasons, with US officials identifying one as the ambassador and saying the pair plotted “terrorist attacks” in the Balkan country.
The diplomats were suspected of “involvement in activities that harm the country’s security,” Albania’s Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Edlira Prendi told reporters, adding that the decision was taken in consultation with other countries.
She declined to provide the diplomats’ names or elaborate on the nature of their alleged offense.
But in a statement welcoming the move, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described the diplomats as “two Iranian agents who plotted terrorist attacks in Albania.”
US National Security Adviser John Bolton also identified one of the diplomats as the ambassador.
“Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania just expelled the Iranian ambassador, signaling to Iran’s leaders that their support for terrorism will not be tolerated,” Bolton wrote on Twitter.
He added: “We stand with PM Rama and the Albanian people as they stand up to Iran’s reckless behavior in Europe and across the globe.”
An Albanian TV station, Top Channel, reported that the Iranians were suspected of links to an alleged plot to attack a 2016 World Cup match between Albania and Israel.
After the match some 20 people were arrested in Albania and Kosovo in connection with the alleged plot.
At the request of US authorities and the UN in 2013, Albania agreed to take in some 3,000 members of Iranian opposition group known as The People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
Their relocation from a camp in Iraq was completed in 2016 when the last 280 people left for Albania. They currently live in a compound in the northwest of the country.
Albania expels Iranian diplomats for ‘harming security’
Albania expels Iranian diplomats for ‘harming security’
- “Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania just expelled the Iranian ambassador, signaling to Iran’s leaders that their support for terrorism will not be tolerated,” Bolton wrote on Twitter
Blair pressured UK officials over case against soldiers implicated in death of Iraqi
- Newly released files suggest ex-PM took steps to ensure cases were not heard in civilian court
- Baha Mousa died in British custody in 2003 after numerous assaults by soldiers over 36 hours
LONDON: Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair pressured officials not to let British soldiers be tried in civil courts on charges related to the death of an Iraqi man in 2003, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Baha Mousa died in British Army custody in Basra during the Iraq War, having been repeatedly assaulted by soldiers over a 36-hour period.
Newly released files show that in 2005 Antony Phillipson, Blair’s private secretary for foreign affairs, had written to the prime minister saying the soldiers involved would be court-martialed, but “if the (attorney general) felt that the case were better dealt with in a civil court he could direct accordingly.”
The memo sent to Blair was included in a series of files released to the National Archives in London this week. At the top of the memo, he wrote: “It must not (happen)!”
In other released files, Phillipson told Blair that the attorney general and Ministry of Defence could give details on changes to the law they were proposing at the time so as to avoid claims that British soldiers could not operate in a war zone for fear of prosecution.
In response, Blair said: “We have, in effect, to be in a position where (the) ICC (International Criminal Court) is not involved and neither is CPS (Crown Prosecution Service). That is essential. This has been woefully handled by the MoD.”
In 2005, Cpl Donald Payne was court-martialed, jailed for a year and dismissed from the army for his role in mistreating prisoners in custody, one of whom had been Mousa.
Payne repeatedly assaulted, restrained and hooded detainees, including as part of what he called “the choir,” a process by which he would kick and punch prisoners at intervals so that they made noise he called “music.”
He became the first British soldier convicted of war crimes, admitting to inhumanely treating civilians in violation of the 2001 International Criminal Court Act.
