Iran tries Arab dissident for terrorism
The formal proceedings began 14 months after the Sweden-based dissident was lured into a “honeytrap” in Turkey before being smuggled home by Iran-assigned operatives.
A “Revolutionary” court in Tehran opened the trial of Habib Chaab, the leader of a foreign-based pan-Arab movement, on terror-related charges.
Reading out the indictment in the Jan. 18 session, a prosecutor accused Chaab of “corruption on earth,” a charge in Iran’s Islamic penal code that is punishable by the death penalty.
The indictment was based on Chaab’s alleged role in “masterminding and carrying out terrorist operations” in a campaign “to fight the Islamic Republic establishment.”
Chaab, also identified as Asyud, is believed to have been one of the founders of an Arab opposition group, known by such names as Al-Nidhal, Al-Ahwaziyah and the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, which advocates independence for the Arab minority in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province.
