Iraqi government attempting to cover up Ashraf massacre and role of perpetrators of crimes against humanity

Witnesses are ready to deliver testimony at presence of US and UN representatives on condition that a copy of their testimony is given to them

According to a statement released by Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran five months after the mass execution and hostage taking of Ashraf residents on September 1^st by Iraqi forces, yesterday agents of the Ashraf repressive committee placed a letter signed by “Major Nofel, Camp Ashraf Police Station Chief” on the wall of the Iraqi forces center in Camp Liberty calling on “Camp Ashraf residents” and their “legal representatives” to appear for “the decision of the investigative judge” on 3 September 2013 to deliver their testimony on the “incident” that took place in Ashraf.

Launching the judge decision into action after five months is yet another ring of the conspiracies staged to cloak the crime against humanity and cover up the role of those involved in it. The Iranian Resistance has time and again in statements numbers 65, 73, 77, 86, 92 issued on 25 September, 7 October, 1^st and 15^th of November announced Maliki’s goal in these investigation is to whitewash his bloody hands and accuse the victims instead of the criminal. He is seeking to introduce the hostages and 42 surviving Ashraf residents as the elements behind this attack and keep those responsible for this crime safe from justice and accountability.

This is while in the past few months the US government, European Union, US Congress, European Parliament, Amnesty International and … have called for independent international investigations into the September 1^st massacre and 35 senior US dignitaries, including 10 generals, former US House of Representatives Speakers and presidential candidates, former secretaries and ambassadors, wrote to the US Secretary of State: “Asking the Iraqi government, which committed these atrocities, to perform an impartial investigation and make those results public is absolutely ludicrous. But we do not even have that pretense of objectivity.”

On September 25^th, a three-man team dispatched by Diyala police chief General Shemmari, commander of the attack on Ashraf, came to Liberty to interview a number of the eyewitnesses. Two of these individuals were Shemmari’s deputies and commanded the attack. Despite the fact that our lawyers rejected these investigations as illegal, one of the witnesses delivered his testimony for four and half hours. In the end, however, the delegation was not even willing to give a copy of the testimony to the witness himself.

Despite all this, as stated in the abovementioned statements, the residents’ representatives have time and again said to Iraqi forces, UNAMI and US representatives that the residents who survived the Ashraf massacre are ready to testify before representatives of the UN and US Embassy on the condition that a copy of their testimony is given to them so there is no chance of changes being made in their testimony.

The Iranian Resistance once again calls on the UN to conduct an independent and comprehensive probe into the September 1^st massacre and place all the perpetrators before justice so Maliki and Khamenei would not be able to cover up this grave crime against humanity, relive the major criminals of any accountability and pave the path for more massive massacres in the future.