Western allies accuse Iran of covert overseas 'kill, kidnap' policy
LONDON
Fourteen Western states, including the U.S., the U.K. and France, have accused Iran of attempting to kill or kidnap people in Europe and North America, including dissidents, journalists and officials.
"We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty," the countries said in a joint statement.
"These services are increasingly collaborating with international criminal organizations to target journalists, dissidents, Jewish citizens and current and former officials in Europe and North America. This is unacceptable," the statement said.
The governments of Albania, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S. called on the Iranian authorities to immediately stop such illegal activities.
Rejecting the accusations, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the claims as "baseless,” calling them "an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, the genocide in occupied Palestine.”
Baqaei said the accusations were "blatant fabrications... designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation.”
A U.K. parliamentary committee earlier this month blamed Iran for at least 15 attempts to kill or kidnap British-based individuals since 2022.
Dutch intelligence, meanwhile, accused Tehran of staging a 2024 assassination attempt on an Iranian living in that country. The plot was thwarted when police intervened and arrested two suspects.
One of the two people detained was also suspected of involvement in attempting to kill Spanish right-wing politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a supporter of the Iranian opposition who was shot in Madrid the same year.
And the U.S. Justice Department announced the indictment in 2023 of three members of a European criminal gang who allegedly undertook a Tehran-backed plot to assassinate a dissident Iranian-American journalist.
