The government in the Netherlands has summoned the Iranian ambassador to account for his government’s harassment of activists living abroad – after the Dutch intelligence and security service said it suspected Tehran of being behind two assassination attempts in Europe.
In its annual report on Thursday, the AIVD took the unusual step of saying publicly it believed Iranian agents had been behind an attempt to kill activist Siamak Tahmasbi in Haarlem, west of Amsterdam, last June.
Two men were arrested after climbing on to the balcony of Mr Tahmasbi’s home. The AIVD report stated that one of the men was now also suspected of attempting to kill Spanish politician and Iran critic Alejo Vidal-Qadras in Madrid, in November 2023.
After the attempt on his life, Mr Vidal-Qadras, a co-founder of the far-right Vox party and former vice-president of the European Parliament, said he believed Iran was employing professional hitmen to attempt to silence critics with links to dissident groups.
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The two assailants in Haarlem were in telephone contact with a third man who appeared to have been directing the operation remotely, but he escaped.
“The two assassination attempts fit the modus operandi Iran has been using for years: exploiting criminal networks in Europe to silence vocal opponents of the regime”, the AIVD report stated.
“Based on intelligence, it is likely that Iran is responsible for the two liquidation attempts.”
In response to the report, foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp summoned the Iranian ambassador on Friday, asking him to explain his government’s actions as reported by the security service.
It’s not the first time the Netherlands has clashed with Iran over Tehran’s harassment of its nationals living abroad.
In 2017, Dutch-Iranian activist Ahmad Mola Nissi was shot dead in The Hague. He had reported at least seven threats to the police but he was not given protection.
Mr Nissi’s death led detectives to look again at possible links to the killing of another dissident Iranian, Ali Motamed (58), in Almere, in 2015. In both cases they were gunned down by attackers near their homes.
In 2019, the Netherlands expelled two Iranian diplomats but did not specify why.
Fear and outrage among the Iranian diaspora over the failure of the Dutch authorities to react more forcibly to the threats against Mr Nissa led to demands for a national reporting point for diaspora communities facing intimidation.
According to the current right-wing government in The Hague – led by prime minister Dick Schoof, formerly head of the security service – a pilot programme for the reporting point will begin by the end of this year.
In a message in the AIVD report, its director general, Erik Akerboom, said the West was experiencing “a transition” from a world in which its security felt self-evident to one in which it had become “the main concern”.
