By KUNA,
London : British Home Secretary Mrs Jacqui Smith failed Wednesday in a legal bid to challenge a ruling that the UK Government must end the “perverse” listing of the main Iranian opposition organisation as a banned terrorist group.
The Court of Appeal, in central London, held that there were “no valid grounds” for contending that the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission made errors of law in ordering the removal of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from the blacklist.
Three senior judges refused the Home Secretary permission to appeal against the Commission’s decision that the PMOI was not “concerned in terrorism” for the purposes of the UK 2000 Terrorism Act.
Applications by the PMOI in 2001 and 2003 to be removed from the list were refused by the Home Office.
A third application, backed by 35 members of the two Houses of Parliament, was refused in 2006 by the then Home Secretary John Reid.
The cross-party group of MPs and peers took the case to the Commission, which ruled that the Home Office had misunderstood the law, ignored important facts and reached a “perverse” decision.
The Commission concluded that action by the PMOI against Iranian military and security targets had effectively ended in 2001, that the organisation had no military structure, and that it disarmed in 2003 and had not attempted to re-arm.
The PMOI, which campaigns for the replacement of the Iranian regime by a secular democracy, drew attention to Iran’s nuclear development programme in 2002.