APPREHENDED
- Full name: Amir Saadouni
- Pseudonym: N/a
- Alternatives: N/a
- Location: Belgium, fmr Iran
- Affiliation: Ministry of Intelligence of the Islamic Republic of Iran [MOIS]
Amir Saadouni (°1980) is an Iranian state terrorist based in Belgium. He was granted asylum in the early 2000s after leaving Iran where he was reportedly being harassed for supporting the People’s Holy Warriors Organization of Iran [MEK; Sâzmân-e Mojâhedin-e Khalq-e Irân].1 Saadouni married Nasimeh Naami who allegedly convinced him to help spy on exiled Iranian dissidents for the theocratic regime’s intelligence services.2 During the 2010s, he made several trips to Iran.
In 2018, Saadouni and his wife were recruited into a cell headed by their superior Assadollah Assadi and tasked with executing a plot hatched by elements within Iran’s intelligence community to attack a meeting of the National Council of the Iranian Resistance [NCRI] in Paris. They were given a powerful bomb by Assadi during a rendezvous in Luxembourg on Jun. 28.3 Two days later, Belgian special forces arrested them as they were on their way to attack the gathering.4 On Feb. 04, 2021, Saadouni was sentenced to fifteen years in prison by a court in Antwerp.5 His wife was handed an even longer sentence.
References