Concern is intensifying over Iran's bid to kill dissidents in Europe (Image: Iranian Supreme Leader'S Office/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)
Iran can hire assassins in the UK and Europe “very easily” and must face more international pressure, Sir Keir Starmer has been warned.
A Spanish politician who survived being shot in the face by a hitman believed to have been hired by Tehran told the Daily Express the “Ayatollahs are murderers”.
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Alejo Vidal-Quadras, 79, said the Iranian regime and intelligence agencies use criminals to avoid diplomatic repercussions.
And Dr Matthew Levitt, a former counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI, said Iran uses Eastern European gangs, which then "sub-contract to youths", creating distance between the target and Tehran.
The Iranian regime "repeatedly" uses the Foxtrot and Rumba gangs, which operate in Sweden and the Hells Angels to act on their behalf, Mr Levitt said.
Dr Alejo Vidal-Quadras was targeted in a suspected Iranian hit (Image: Getty)
Mr Vidal-Quadras told the Daily Express: “After the terrorist attack on Kurdish dissidents in the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin on September 17, 1992, severe sanctions were imposed against the Iranian regime and the Mullahs decided to change their methods.
“Instead of doing these crimes themselves, they use mafias or gangs to do the job for them.
“It is very easy for the Iranian theocracy to hire these kinds of criminal organisations because they have large amounts of money to buy their services.
“In my case, the seven individuals arrested in Spain, France, Colombia and the Netherlands were related in different ways to the Mocro Mafia, a very powerful criminal gang based in the Netherlands.
“These kinds of mafias exist in Europe and in the US.
“The Iranian regime is a terrorist state and they do not hesitate to eliminate its opponents inside and outside Iran.
“The Iranian Ayatollahs are murderers.
“The recent news about the plot the IRGC was preparing to kill Donald Trump proves these criminals have no limit.”
He added that the suspected hitman in his case was a French-Tunisian national arrested before he could kill an Iranian dissident in Holland.
Dr Vidal-Quadras insisted Western governments must proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists and sever diplomatic ties.
He added: “Policy of the Western democracies has failed miserably. It is a wrong policy and we must change it.
“Many attempts to bring the Iranian regime to some kind of rational behaviour and to bring some balance, it has been impossible. Absolutely impossible.
“Not only has it failed, it has been counterproductive because it has encouraged the regime to become more and more hostile and more and more aggressive.
“For Western democracies, the Iranian regime must be a pariah state. No diplomatic relations. No trade relations and absolute international isolation.
“If Europe designates them [the IRGC] as terrorists, they will be extremely limited in their capacities to do harm in the West.
“The regime must be financially strangled. We must harden sanctions.”
In September, investigators in Germany and France revealed that Iranian agents - who were acting through European drug traffickers living in Iran - hired criminals to carry out surveillance of Jews and Jewish businesses in Paris, Munich, and Berlin.
And Dr Levitt told the Daily Express that Western Governments could hit Tehran by cutting diplomatic ties and closing embassies.
This, he argued, is because the regime sees its murder, kidnap and sabotage plots as an “effective way” to influence policies towards them.
He told the Daily Express: “The reality is, you don’t want to use the diplomatic hammer in a way that is going to undermine your position.
“But it is also the case that the Iranians need and want the ability to have diplomatic outreach to the West, at least as much, I would argue more, than the West needs in return.
“The idea that if you designate the IRGC, your entire diplomatic mission is going to be shut down and the Iranians will never speak to you again is a misnomer.
Keir Starmer has been urged to take a tougher stance on Iran (Image: Getty)
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“The fact [is] there has never been a consequence of significance, to Iran for carrying out these operations, and let's be blunt, this is not unpleasant behaviour.
“This is murder. This is abducting citizens. It doesn’t get worse. On our soil. It has only emboldened them. And until there is an effort to extract a cost that makes a difference to them, this won’t stop. They see this as an effective and inexpensive way to influence and intimidate dissidents or foreign governments.
“We need to start doing more.”
Dr Levitt said plots in Europe have intensified at crucial points during the negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal.
He added: “Iran has been incredibly aggressive in using this tactic and this tempo has increased significantly. The most prominent trend we see in Europe is the use of criminal cut outs.
“And in some cases, they will hire Eastern European gangs and those gangs will hire youths. All of this makes it much harder for law enforcement to identify when and where something is going to happen. This makes it not only a law enforcement problem, an intelligence problem, because you are going to need forward-looking intelligence and its a policy problem.
“We’ve seen Germany shutting down consulates and lowering diplomatic presence, we need more than that.
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“If the only thing done against Iran is sanctions, it is not going to do the trick. Sanctions are powerful when they are used in conjunction with other tools. We need a credible military threat. We need to make it much harder for them to re-arm their proxies.”
The head of MI6, Sir Richard Moore, warned Tehran “maintains” its efforts to “eliminate dissidents, at home and abroad”.
He said: “Iran’s allied militias across the Middle East have suffered serious blows, but the regime’s nuclear ambitions continue to threaten all of us, especially friends of France and the UK in the region, and the Iranian regime maintains its efforts to eliminate dissidents, at home and abroad.”