Enlightening letter of MOIS agent

Iran Efshagar, persian news website, has posted a letter from Abdolrahman Mohammadia, a former Iranian regimes agent in Albania. Mohammadin was recruited by the Iranian notorious secret service, MOIS operating in Albania against the members of the Mojahedin Organization living in the country.  Abdolrahman Mohammadian writes:

Dear Editors of Iran Efshagar website

Please publish the attached letter I have sent to the Secretary General of the United Nations, international organizations and Albanian authorities in order to calm my conscience and reduce the burden of betrayal that I fell into against the people and my country through conspiracy and deception! This is for the information of my compatriots, and especially to transfer experience to young people who do not have the experience of this regime, its intelligence service, and its agents.

Thank you

Abdolrahman Mohammadian

Letter to the UN Secretary General:

Honorable Secretary-General of the United Nations, His Excellency António Guterres,

I, Abdolrahman Mohammadian, born on July 8, 1959 (currently 66 years old), was captured by Iraqi forces in early 1981 (1360 Solar Hijri calendar) while serving as a soldier during the Iran-Iraq war, and remained a prisoner of war in various Iraqi camps until the end of the conflict. On June 14, 1989, following the release of POWs, I refused to return to Iran and voluntarily joined the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) in Iraq. During this period, I resided first in Camp Ashraf and later in Camp Liberty.

In 2016, the PMOI transferred me to Albania. That same year, upon my decision to discontinue my involvement in the struggle, the PMOI assisted me in establishing a private life in Tirana and provided financial support at my request until the end of 2017.

In 2018, I came under the support of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), receiving limited financial assistance from an affiliated organization named “RAMSA.” My family also supported me financially to manage my life in Albania.

In June and August 2018, I made two unsuccessful attempts to leave Albania through Greece and Croatia; I was arrested both times and returned to Albania. Upon returning and contacting RAMSA for assistance, I was informed that I would no longer receive their support. My appeals to Albania’s Ministry of Interior and Immigration Office were also unsuccessful.

In November 2018, through Ehsan Bidi and Hassan Heyrani—whom I later discovered were actively collaborating with the Iranian regime—I requested a meeting with the Iranian embassy to arrange my return to Iran. However, they told me there was no need to visit the embassy directly, and that instead, these two individuals would instruct me on what actions to take. They asked me to write an official declaration of separation from the PMOI according to a text specified by the embassy. I wrote and submitted this declaration. This declaration was published on websites affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence on January 4, 2019, against my will.

In February 2019, Hassan Heyrani informed me that the embassy had instructed me to maintain contact through him and Ehsan Bidi and carry out tasks assigned by them. Initially, Hassan Heyrani paid me €300 monthly; later this amount increased to €500 per month. From then onward, I cooperated with individuals linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) and embassy who were paid for spreading propaganda against PMOI. Below are some actions these individuals took to destabilize Albania for PMOI members and demonize them politically—activities in which I was directly involved from January 2019 until my departure from Albania in June 2023.

After internal struggles and reflection, I decided to defend truth and my human dignity by sharing my bitter experiences and observations with you. I call upon you to condemn these actions by the Iranian regime and its embassy as severe violations of human rights and refugee rights. My story exemplifies how Iran employs its agents against PMOI refugees through terrorist conspiracies and political demonization efforts aimed at covering up its crimes. I accept full responsibility for all my statements herein and am prepared to testify in any impartial court with supporting documents.

1. The embassy exploited my emotional desire to see my elderly mother again in Iran. Initially claiming no obstacles existed for my return, they gradually conditioned it upon conducting anti-PMOI activities during consular procedures. Throughout these years, we produced false propaganda against PMOI daily; this caused me constant moral anguish.
2. Since February 2019, when integrated into MOIS’s spy network through regime agents like Mustafa Beheshti (Milad), Mehdi Soleimani, Reza Mazginnejad, Ibrahim Moradi, and Khalil Ansarian—individuals who secretly spied on PMOI members’ movements—I witnessed instructions from the embassy urging these agents to conceal their affiliations by simultaneously receiving funds from RAMSA and PMOI itself. Once their relationships became known publicly, PMOI severed ties with them; subsequently they openly engaged in anti-PMOI propaganda.
3. The Iranian embassy instructed its operatives in Tirana to produce at least four articles each month defaming PMOI; individuals like Gholamreza Shokri, Malek Beyt Mashal, and Reza Eslami initially complied but later reduced this output to two due to repetitive content becoming ineffective. Sometimes pre-written articles were handed out for agents’ publication under their own names. MOIS used agents abroad such as Mohammad Karami (France), Massoud Khodabandeh (UK), Parsa Sorbi (MardomTV.com in USA), Ali Akbar Rastgoo (“Kanoon Ava”), and Ehsan Bidi (“Nejat Yaftegan”) for disseminating these materials online.

Initially, Ehsan Bidi was tracking and collecting articles written on behalf of the embassy. He was arrested by Albanian police in October 2020. After that, this work was done by “Hassan Heyrani.”

4. In March 2018, Albanian police thwarted a terrorist plot by IRGC Quds Force targeting a Nowruz gathering organized by PMOI in Tirana. Consequently, Albania expelled Iranian ambassador Gholamhossein Mohammadnia along with another diplomat in December 2018; afterward access to embassy premises became difficult for operatives including Ehsan Bidi or Hassan Heyrani.
   In January 2020 two more diplomats were expelled; subsequently “Haji” or “Haj Mohammad,” our main contact at the embassy whom we knew only by nickname along with another person named “Qanvati” who worked as the embassy’s chargé d’affaires and specified instructions against the PMOI, left Albania too.
   In September 2021, Albanian authorities closed down Iran’s embassy entirely causing disarray among espionage networks prompting establishment of alternative cover organizations like NGOs by regime agents.
5. In October 2019, mercenary Hassan Heyrani, after receiving sufficient money from the embassy, ​​rented a cafe called “Café Frank,” which was a cover for gatherings of people affiliated with the embassy, ​​and set it up in the name of an Albanian named “Dashamir Mersuli.” This became the main gathering place for the network associated with the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence for espionage and terrorist plots against Ashraf 3 and the PMOI based in Tirana. After the embassy was closed, “Hassan Heyrani,” who was the liaison between the mercenary network and the Ministry of Intelligence, was assigned to establish a cover association called “Asila Association” in addition to the Frank Cafe hangout. Hassan Heyrani registered and launched Asila with the help of “Dashamir Mersuli.” They rented a three-story building for the association with a multi-year contract and a monthly rent of 2,000 euros. A ceremony to mark the establishment of the Asila Association was held in this building on November 30, 2021, which was widely covered by the websites of the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran. By order of the Ministry of Intelligence, Cafe Frank was moved to the first floor of this building to ensure normal traffic flow.
6. ASILA association operators, including Hassan Heyrani, maintained daily and continuous contacts with Iranian Intelligence Ministry (MOIS) agents such as Soraya Abdollahi in Iran, Ebrahim Khodabandeh in Tehran, and Massoud Khodabandeh in the UK. Hassan Heyrani usually used a spare phone to communicate with MOIS. He invited MOIS agents from European countries to Albania to demonize the PMOI. For instance, he arranged for a woman named Batool Soltani to come to Albania, but Albanian police prevented her entry on July 31, 2022, and returned her to Germany.
7. After registering the ASILA association, I (Abdolrahman Mohammadian) was responsible for collecting articles and writings from other members. For this purpose, I communicated with an MOIS agent in Germany named Ali Akbar Rastgoo. I received materials from others via WhatsApp, edited them, and sent them to Rastgoo. Later, I was instructed to email these materials to Rastgoo, who then forwarded them to Mohammad Hossein Sobhani in Germany for publication on websites such as “Nejat Yaftegan” and “Kanoon Ava.” These same articles were simultaneously re-published on other MOIS-linked websites like “Iran Interlink” (UK), “Faragh” (Iran), and “Nejat Association” (Iran).
8. In early 2022, production of anti-PMOI propaganda declined significantly. “Haj Mohammad,” previously an intelligence officer at the Iranian embassy, sent messages from Iran urging network members to increase their output. Network members responded that they had exhausted all possible lies and slander against PMOI and had nothing more to say.
9. In March 2022, MOIS agent Yousef Laskani traveled from Germany to Tirana on orders from “Haj Mohammad” to meet network members and prepare reports for the Iranian regime. He visited Tirana twice for this purpose. Laskani who had earlier sought asylum as a cover in Germany, one month after returning to Germany, returned to Iran in April 2022.
   One of the network members, Sarfaraz Rahimi, who was a Baluch and from the same town as Laskani, said that Laskani was in contact with the provincial intelligence officer (Sistan and Baluchestan) named Salari.
10. MOIS coordinated visits by foreign journalists through Massoud Khodabandeh and his wife Anne Singleton. We met collectively with these journalists at Cafe Frank or ASILA headquarters to demonize PMOI. Once a BBC Persian journalist visited Albania, we met him at Fresco restaurant. He had strong anti-PMOI sentiments and dictated questions matching Iranian regime claims about PMOI’s alleged undemocratic practices, prisons in Ashraf camp, and Kurdish killings in Iraq. He explained what we should and should not say, to the point where one of the people sarcastically said that he had both the questions and the answers. What are we doing here?

The journalist recorded a fabricated interview with Gholamali Mirzaei (a former POW of Iran and Iraq War), broadcasted by BBC Persian on September 20-21, 2020, on the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War. Afterward, Gholamali  Mirzaei returned to Iran under MOIS coordination.

11. Once, a French journalist (from Le Monde) was introduced for an interview, and they had emphasized that everyone should come and talk. We met with this journalist in a cafe-restaurant in the same neighborhood as Fresco. The journalist’s questions focused on PMOI leadership whereabouts, internal relations, and financial sources. Despite extensive notes taken by him, Le Monde never published any article afterward. Hassan Heyrani said that the magazine probably had not been paid their dues and that someone had probably stolen the money; they did not publish it either.
12. In February 2020, they brought in a “New York Times American reporter” for an interview. The topic of the conversation with this reporter was focused on the internal relations of the PMOI and its undemocratic nature, and the people had to state the dictated contents of the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence as a witness and what pressures were imposed on them. I also spoke with this reporter, and on February 17, 2020, the New York Times published it. The newspaper quoted me as saying: “Little by little, you break down. You forget yourself and your personality changes. You just follow orders. You are no longer yourself. You are just a machine…” When Mr. Giuliani or John Bolton gave speeches in recent years, members were instructed to “follow a specific line and tweet it 10 times with different accounts.” The newspaper added, “The group strongly denies the above accusations and calls many critics, including Mr. Mohammadian, Iranian spies.” The truth is that everything I said to the New York Times was a lie. During my time with the PMOI, I received nothing but kindness, humanity, and help. No one ever asked me to tweet 10 times or 5 times for Mr. Giuliani or Bolton. The above sentences were clichés that the embassy had obligated us to say. The PMOI organization had rightly told the New York Times that we were spying for the Iranian regime.

Let me give a testimony here. In the 28 years that I worked with the PMOI, I have never seen anyone falsely, without certainty, or for political reasons accused of collaborating with the regime. In return, the regime agents told us that when you are accused of being an agent for the Ministry of Intelligence, you should say that the PMOI accuses its opponents of being agents. Time has shown that if someone was called as agent by PMOI it was true. An example of this is myself and other people from the Asila Association in Albania.

13. Spying on the PMOI was one of the main tasks of the mercenary network. Sarfaraz Rahimi, who is currently the director of the regime-affiliated “Nejat Association in Tirana,” was spying on them while also receiving financial help from the PMOI. One day, I went to the “Frank” cafe, saw Sarfaraz there, and realized his connection to the network. He made me swear not to tell anyone that Sarfaraz had been to the Frank cafe. Later, in August 2021, he publicly announced his separation from the PMOI on the orders of the Ministry of Intelligence, and his written texts were published on the Ministry of Intelligence’s multiple websites.

During this period, I witnessed the regime setting traps for people with various tricks to use them to spy on the PMOI. Khalil Ansarian, Mehdi Soleimani, Milad Beheshti, and Musa Jaberi were among the people who, despite receiving financial support from the PMOI, were also spying on them. Some of these people were forced by the Ministry of Intelligence to spread slander against the organization with fake accounts. For example, one of the accounts that was active under the name “Ashraf 3 News” and pretended to be from dissidents inside Ashraf 3 was related to “Milad Beheshti.” Milad Beheshti’s sister, “Narges Beheshti,” had been working for the Ministry of Intelligence for years. She wanted her brother “Milad Beheshti” to go public as soon as possible so that he could go to Iran. However, the Ministry of Intelligence refused to allow him to go public for months in order to obtain information from the PMOI. “Milad Beheshti” finally announced his separation from the PMOI on July 7, 2022. However, “Haji Mohammad” still opposed his going to Iran for a long time.

14. After the regime’s embassy was closed, the embassy staff, who were taken by surprise, cut off their contact with Hassan Heyrani. The agents had not received any money for about three months. This had caused a number of the agents to decide to leave Albania. “Haji Mohammad”, who was in Tehran, was communicating with “Hassan Heyrani” through a female intelligence agent named “Soraya Abdullahi” who was working under the cover of a PMOI family, until after three months, “Haji Mohammad” established his connection on Signal app and started sending money through Turkey, and their activities against the PMOI returned to the previous routine.
15. Before the embassy was closed, a few people such as Mohammad Turang, Manouchehr Abdi, Azim Mish Mast, etc. were sent to Iran after providing security guarantees and continuous espionage against the PMOI. However, after the embassy was closed, the line of sending members of the mercenary network to Iran stopped. The reason was that in the absence of the embassy, ​​they wanted to use the network members in Albania against the PMOI at any cost. During this time, Hassan Heyrani and Dashamir sent only two people, Gholamreza Mirzaei and Parviz Heydarzadeh, who had been planned in advance by the embassy, ​​to Iran.
16. The Iranian embassy in Albania and the Ministry of Intelligence used a number of Albanian citizens against the PMOI, including:

1) Olsi Jazexhi: He studied communications in Malaysia and ran a website and was based in Kuala Lumpur. He worked in connection with the regime’s embassy against the PMOI.

2) Gjergji Thanasi: He pretends to be a university professor and has visited Iran many times and met with agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC, including Ebrahim Khodabandeh, and planned against the PMOI. His photos with the IRGC have been published in various regime media outlets. Thanasi was in contact with the mercenary network on many occasions as the embassy’s liaison and participated in ASILA programs.

3) Dashamir Mersuli: He was used to set up the Frank Cafe. The ASILA Association was registered in his name and he was openly in contact with agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and had also visited Iran.

4) Erisa Idrizi: In 2017 she married Sarfaraz Rahimi and the Ministry of Intelligence employed her as a translator in the “Asila Association” and announced the fake gathering of the “Asila Women’s Association” with her. In 2024, Idrizi traveled to Doha, Qatar, with Aldo Sulollari, where they interviewed Soraya Abdollahi and several other intelligence agents who introduced themselves as disgruntled families of the PMOI and made a documentary called “Mother of Love of Separation” which was completely false in Albanian and was shown in Albanian cities to defame the PMOI.

5) Aldo Sulollari: He participated in all the rallies of Asila for a long time and received money in the name of preparing reports. This person was later officially hired as the head of Asila’s journalistic affairs and rented a studio in the Fresco neighborhood and is active in arranging interviews with local press for individuals and spreading lies against the PMOI.

17. Some of the other missions of the Nejat Association in Albania were as follows:

1) Publishing books against the PMOI:

The Ministry of Intelligence had ordered all members of the network to write a book against the PMOI under the pretense of memoirs or any something else. With pressure and threats of cutting off money, they forced me to start writing my memoirs and highlight the weaknesses of the PMOI relations… After about a month, they changed many of my writings and gave the book to an Albanian translator introduced by the Ministry of Intelligence, and the book was published by Thanasi and his acquaintance. Knowing that everything was a lie, I insisted that it be published only in Albanian and that Persian text should not be used, but later I realized that parts of the book’s Persian text had been published on the Ministry of Intelligence’s websites.

2) Launching Internet television programs against the PMOI, including:

An interview with Parsa Sarbi (Mardom TV) from USA, which was coordinated by a Ministry of Intelligence agent in France, named Mohammad Karami. Mohammad Karami, named Michael, was in contact with me and some of the network’s operators from the phone number 33667573463 (France). One week before, the interview topic and questions were sent to the person, and during this time, Mohammad Karami was briefing the person. I had an interview with Parsa Sarbi 3 times and each time they briefed me to talk about the following topics:

The PMOI do not have a popular base inside Iran, the PMOI have committed Kurdish genocide in Iraq, the PMOI is not democratic, they do not have freedom within their relations, we should encourage the PMOI to stop fighting and ….

3) Launching the Asila website

After a while, when Asila became established, it was decided to open a website called Asila and the above works would be under the name of Asila itself. They asked me to write a script and produce a television program. However, this work stopped after producing a program about 8 April 2011 attack against Ashraf, and the work on the radio and internet channel did not go anywhere. Erisa Idrizi and Sarfaraz Rahimi produced a program called “Black Box”. Haji (Mohammad) constantly emphasized that this program should continue.

4) Holding a joint conference of Asila and Albanian Nejat association with Nejat association branches in different provinces of Iran:

These conferences were held under the supervision of Ebrahim Khodabandeh. The Nejat Associations under the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence gathered a number of families of the PMOI with encouragement and threats and we connected to them via video conference and claimed that the PMOI had forcibly detained the individuals. Mohammad Karami contacted me and I was supposed to write an article and give an interview about this, but I refused. That is why they threatened me, “Don’t you want to come to Iran? Why don’t you cooperate?” Once, when we connected from Albania to the Lorestan Nejat Association, which is my hometown, they made me the host of a program, after which I had a guilty conscience for months and decided to separate from them.

5) The Asila Association tried to demonize the PMOI by going to different cities in Albania under the pretext of holding book events and seminars in the cities of Durres, Pograd, Kerch, etc. The Ministry of Intelligence emphasized that you must have books in Albanian in order to be able to set up a book event. Therefore, a book called Animal Farm by Hassan Heyrani and a book called Captivity to Captivity in my name were edited and printed in Albanian, which were given to people for free at the book events. Gjergji Thanasi was in charge of the translation and printing of the books and the cost was covered by the Ministry of Intelligence.

6) After the closure of the Iranian embassy in Albania in early 2022, Hassan Heyrani, on the orders of “Haj Mohammad”, rented two apartments near the Asila building to secretly bring some of the regime’s agents from other countries to Albania. They were people who secretly had relations with the Ministry of Intelligence and had family or close acquaintances in Ashraf 3… Hassan Heyrani paid for the travel and accommodation of these people in Albania and justified them to contact their family and acquaintances in Ashraf. I learned of at least five cases that they had come to Tirana.

• On November 6, 2022, 6 members of Asila, Hassan Heyrani (chairman of the association), Gholamreza Shekari, head of the association’s force; Ehsan Bidi; Hassan Shahbaz; Mehdi Soleimani and Ali Hajari were arrested by SPAK (the Anti-Corruption and Organized Crime Agency). After Hassan’s arrest, I was put in charge of the association’s administration and was supposed to be in direct contact with Haj Mohammad. Sarfaraz bought me a phone with which I could contact Haj Mohammad. For a few days, I was in contact with Haj Mohammad via Signal Messenger at the phone number 00989922305752 (the calls were just chats). In the same few days, Haj Mohammad said that from now on, I am no longer there and you will be fully connected to the Nejat Association and its president, Ebrahim Khodabandeh. After a few days, I refused to continue this call and returned the phone to Sarfaraz Rahimi.

The agents launched the “Albania Branch of the Nejat Association”. The Nejat Association is a front organization of the Ministry of Intelligence, which, under the guise of a non-governmental organization, has as its main mission the harassment and persecution of the families of the PMOI and terrorist and demonizing activities.

From now on, Ebrahim Khodabandeh would transmit the instructions of the Ministry of Intelligence to the network personnel through video and audio communications. In an audio message, which is attached, he said:

“We cut down from all sides so that no matter what happens, Asila would not go down. M. Rahimi (Sarfaraz) do you confirm that still in this quarter (three months) we sent 140,000 euros?” (Here, Sarfaraz Rahimi confirms by saying yes and Ebrahim Khodabandeh continues.) Whereas we started paying with 30,000 euros in one quarter… It was good that he also gave the list of his expenses. Now here they said sir, we want the invoices… I told them, sir, we do not have invoices up to now, but from now on, I will also get invoices… I mean, you can’t say that Nejat isn’t making financial efforts…” Ebrahim Khodabandeh briefed everyone by saying, “You should say that you feel sorry for those people who are in that organization (the PMOI). You should say: Sir, I can tell you that if you want to choose freedom, do not choose captivity, do not be in captivity, and do not tolerate humiliation and insults. There is a place where you can go, there is help, now you have been advised…”

Honorable Secretary-General,

According to the training given to us by the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence, I know that you and the organizations and reporters concerned with the issue of human rights in Iran are the target of a barrage of the same lies and fabrications, letters, reports, and books that I mentioned.

The above represents only part of the Iranian regime’s conspiracies against PMOI refugees residing at Ashraf-3 camp in Albania. I hope that by writing this article, the burden of sins and mistakes that I have made in working with this network will be reduced. I also hope that you will take the necessary measures against the plots and dirty deeds of the Iranian regime’s intelligence service against Iranian refugees in Albania (PMOI), in whatever way you see fit. I call on you and your colleagues to defend human rights and the rights of refugees.

Respectfully,

Abdolrahman Mohammadian
(Former POW during Iran-Iraq War: January 1981 – June 1989)

CC:

• UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
• UN High Commissioner for Refugees
• Amnesty International Secretary-General
• International Federation for Human Rights
• Prime Minister & Ministers of Interior/Foreign Affairs/Justice/Police Chief of Albania
• International Committee In Search of Justice
• Friends of Free Iran Group at European Parliament
• National Council of Resistance of Iran Security & Counterterrorism Commission
• People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran

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