By IRNA,
London : The British government insisted Wednesday it will ensure that public safety is not endangered by the deproscription of the anti-Iran Mujahidden-e-Khalq (MKO) as a terrorist group.
The MKO has “a long history of terrorism and this is why it was proscribed both in the UK and by other countries around the world,” Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said.
“We will ensure that the safety of the public is not in any way jeopardised by this and tighten legislation if necessary,” Smith said after the government failed to win an appeal against a court ruling to remove the terrorist group from its proscribed list.
The MKO, which has carried out wholesale assassinations and terrorist act in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was among the first organisations to be formally outlawed under Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000.
The home secretary said she was “very disappointed” that the court has decided in favour of deproscription after the government rejected a ruling last November for the terrorist group to be removed from its proscribed groups.
“We will consider the judgment carefully, it has no affect on other proscription cases,” she said. “It’s vital that we are able use all the tools we can to prevent terrorists from operating in the UK,” she insisted.
But as the appeal was rejected by three senior judges, headed by Lord Chief Justice Lord Philips, it is not known if the government has any further recourse.
When the appeal was launched in February, Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said that the British government is not convinced at that the MKO has given up terrorism, describing its forced disarmament by US forces in Iraq as being “entirely pragmatic.” During the Iraq war, the MKO was “considered by coalition forces to be completely assimilated into the security apparatus of the Saddam Hussein regime,” Malloch-Brown told parliament.
“Indeed, we had to disarm the organisation to the extent of 2,100 tanks, vehicles and artillery pieces. Since then it has made no renunciation of terrorism and disarmed only in the face of pressure from coalition forces,” he said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed in December that the his government would not accept removing the MKO as a terrorist group, saying there was “no evidence” it had changed and that it was “certainly the case it has been involved in terrorist activity.”