Moscow To Continue Attacks On Ukraine With Iranian Drones: Zelensky

In a press briefing on Tuesday, Judiciary Spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said the two French citizens have been indicted, but no verdict has been issued for them yet.

Regarding the Belgian national, Setayeshi said he was indicted and as soon as the verdict is issued the judiciary will announce it.

However, Setayeshi did not identify the detainees and did not provide any more information about their charges.

On the issue of almost 40 other detained foreign nationals, Setayeshi said they have been arrested in different regions of the country and are accused of different charges. He said the number of those other nationals is “limited” and the judiciary will give more information about their status in future.

Following Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s lead, Iranian officials claim that the ongoing antigovernment protests across Iran – ignited by death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini -- are instigated by foreign enemies.

After the outbreak of protests, Iran said in late September it had detained nine foreign nationals linked to unrest, including those from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, several foreigners visiting Iran have disappeared, confirming earlier reports that the Islamic Republic is taking foreign citizens hostage.

Tehran denies any policy of hostage taking and insists all foreigners are tried according to legal process. However, it has frequently shown readiness for prisoner exchanges and participated in swaps in the past.

According to Iran's laws, those on trial for crimes against national security can only be represented in court by lawyers that have the “endorsement” of the chief justice himself. Almost all dissidents are accused of acting against national security among other crimes, such as insulting the Supreme Leader or unlawful assembly.

The restriction also applies to protesters who have been charged with "corruption on earth" or "waging war against God'' both of which bear a death sentence. Iran's revolutionary courts have sentenced more than 50 protesters to death on such charges since November.

Two protesters who were hanged in December, Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard, were both deprived of the right to choose their own lawyers. They were represented at their trials by court-appointed lawyers. The two young men, apparently, met their attorneys on the day of their trial at court where the lawyers’ role was limited to keeping up appearances of a fair trial.

Iran’s Judicial system, controlled by the Supreme Leader, oversees both judges and prosecutors, while closely coordinating with security and intelligence entities.

Families of some protesters who are on trial allege that the lawyers representing their loved ones made very little effort to present a proper defense and their only statement in court was what was dictated to them by the judiciary and security agents to ensure a pre-determined outcome. The hanging of the two young men was meant to instill fear among the people and keep them away from the protests, the families and others say.

Mashallah Karami whose son Mohammad-Mehdi Karami has been sentenced to death in Alborz Province for alleged participation in the killing of a member of the Basij militia told Etemad newspaper recently that he tried to contact his son’s court-appointed “endorsed lawyer” for a week, after his sentence was announced, to proceed with appeals but never received a response from him. “The court-appointed lawyer refused to let me have the address of his office to go there and tell him what my son has told me for using it in his defense.”

“It’s a matter of life and death for a young man. Shouldn’t the family of the accused be allowed to have their own attorney?” Karami who says his son has sworn his innocence to him said.

Nemat Ahmadi, lawyer and professor of law, told Arman-e Emruz newspaper in December that some of the “endorsed” lawyers, even when appointed by the court rather than the accused, work for extremely high fees. “We heard recently that one [such] lawyer had demanded $250,000 from the family of the accused,” he said.

Ahmadi also pointed out that one of these lawyers told the judge at a recent trial, when he was asked if he had spoken with his client, that he had met his client who was hospitalized for “half an hour” before the trial.

Just a week ago, defense attorney Amir Raesian announced that authorities had finally accepted him and his colleague Roza Etemad-Ansari to represent jailed dissident Toomaj Salehi and that they would be meeting with Toomaj after reading the case files.

The lawyer’s announcement came amid international pressure on the Islamic Republic to free Toomaj who was arrested in late October. The 32-year-old popular rapper could be facing a death sentence for vague charges based on Islamic law, "corruption on earth" and "waging war against God”, brought against him.

“It’s a first and important milestone,” member of the German Bundestag Ye-One Rhie who recently accepted the rapper’s political sponsorship, tweeted about the new development in the case after the announcement.

The IRGC announced on December 25 the arrest of seven people allegedly linked to Britain, for their role in recent protests, prompting what could amount to a new hostage situation. The foreign ministry in Tehran accused the UK of a “destructive role” following the news about the arrests.

The move by Britain, which will be announced within weeks, is supported by Britain's security minister, Tom Tugendhat, and Home Secretary Suella Braverman, the report said.

Tehran's allegations of foreign involvement in the protests have been accompanied by arrests of dozens of dual nationals, part of an official narrative designed to shift the blame away from the Iranian leadership.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in recent weeks had repeatedly claimed that that the IRGC was already sanctioned “in its entirety.”

The British foreign office tweeted December 27 a clip of Cleverly listing British sanctions against Iran including “the IRGC in its entirety.” Cleverly December 13 said in parliament: “We already sanction the IRGC in its entirety.”

Proscribing Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group would mean that it would become a criminal offence to belong to the group, attend its meetings, and carry its logo in public.

The UK Home Office did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment on the Telegraph report.

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday urged Iran to stop detaining dual nationals, saying the practice should not be used to obtain "diplomatic leverage".

Cohen said Monday that the “international community must stop burying its head in the sand when it comes to Iran,” and that Israel should “stop Iran from attaining nuclear capabilities in every way.”

Cohen said the new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu aimed to “deepen ties with European countries and to bolster them compared to past years.” He brushed off any human rights concerns in Europe, attacking Friday’s United Nations General Assembly resolution that sought an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s highest court, on Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Cohen also dismissed the prospect of Israel facing war crimes suits at the International Criminal Court, which Israel and the US do not recognize. Washington voted against the resolution, which passed 87-26.

Some of the Israeli press has made much of the personal relationship between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden. Last July, when Biden arrived for his trip to Israel, he told Netanyahu, then in opposition, “You know that I love you.”

While the latest Israeli military intelligence report favors efforts to reach an international agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program, Netanyahu has long rejected such a course, and strongly supported former US president Donald Trump withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). While Biden came into office committed to restoring the JCPOA, any tensions over this with Netanyahu are likely to soften as Biden officials place no ‘focus’ on JCPOA talks and extend sanctions on Iran.

Netanyahu has also said he wants to extend Israel’s Trump-brokered ‘normalization’ agreements with some Arab states, stressing an Iranian threat. But he is unlikely to convince Saudi Arabia since his government now includes ultra-Zionists committed to speeding up Jewish settlement in occupied Palestinian territory. Riyadh voted Friday in favor of the UN resolution referring Israel to the ICJ.

‘Significant contribution to regional stability’

Cohen said Monday he would meet in March in Morocco with counterparts from the ‘normalized’ states – Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan. This would, he said, develop “a significant contribution to security (and) regional stability.” The Times of Israel reported Tuesday that Netanyahu planned to visit the UAE officially for the first time, possibly next week.

After European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell highlighted in December dim prospects for the JCPOA, Ali Bagheri Kani, a deputy Iranian foreign minister and Tehran’s lead nuclear negotiator, said Tuesday Tehran would “continue serious and effective cooperation” with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

One challenge in JCPOA talks has been Tehran’s demand that the IAEA close an enquiry into uranium traces found at ‘non-nuclear’ sites, an enquiry Iran says followed accusations made by Netanyahu in 2018 but which the agency says concern Tehran’s ‘safeguards’ obligations under Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

‘The ball in the Western court’

The US and western European states successfully moved resolutions in June and November at the IAEA governors’ board censuring Iran over its approach to the agency, but Russia and China argued this is counterproductive given the main responsibility for JCPOA restoration lies with the US as the party that abandoned it. Russia’s IAEA ambassador Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted Tuesday that “the ball” was in “the Western court.”

Bagheri Kani offered his views on the JCPOA at a ceremony marking the third death anniversary of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, killed in Baghdad along with nine others January 3, 2020, by a US drone strike. Bagheri Kani stressed Soleimani’s success in “building power by relaying on the capacities in the region” so making “terrorism fail” – referring to the commander’s role mobilizing Iraqi forces against the Islamic State group (Isis, or Daesh).

Bagheri Kani repeated Tehran’s previous threats that the foreign ministry and judiciary were continuing, along with Iraq, to follow routes under international law against “the agents of the assassination” of Soleimani, whose death the UN special rapporteur called ‘unlawful killing.’ The deputy foreign minister gave no details.

The Syrian army said on Monday that a volley of air-launched missiles, coming from the direction of Lake Tiberias in Israel, hit the Damascus International Airport at 2 am local time and briefly put the airport out of service. 

Missiles also hit targets in the south of Damascus, killing two members of the Syrian armed forces and causing some damage, the army said. Earlier, two regional intelligence sources said the strikes had hit an outpost near the airport of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force -- a division primarily responsible for extraterritorial military and clandestine operations – and its affiliated militias. 

Last year, Israel intensified strikes on Damascus International and other civilian airports to disrupt Tehran's increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah. Syria halted flights to and from the airport in June for nearly two weeks after Israeli strikes caused extensive damage to infrastructure. 

Since late in November, Syria and Iran have been deploying new air defense systems, including jamming and early warning systems, around Damascus to prevent Israeli airstrikes in the area. There are reports that the new systems were built by Korean and Chinese companies and provided by Iran as part of agreements reached between Damascus and Tehran.

On Monday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani decried the Israeli attack on Damascus airport, calling on the global community to condemn the violation of Syrian territorial integrity. “We were informed that the Damascus airport was hit by the Zionist regime; this action is condemned in our opinion and the United Nations and other institutions should condemn these aggressions,” he said. 

Last week, a report by Asharq Al-Awsat said Iran is seeking to revive the expansion of its presence near Damascus, something it has always sought to do but was previously prevented by Russia. According to the report, the Islamic Republic’s objective is to create another “southern suburb”, commonly known as Dahieh, like the Hezbollah-dominated suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Now the landscape has changed as Russia seems to be needing its forces for the invasion of Ukraine, so it is evacuating the region with coordination of the Islamic Republic, which is supplying Moscow with drones and missiles to be used in against the Ukrainians. 

Also on Monday, a salvo of Iranian-made Russian drones targeted infrastructure in Ukraine's capital and surrounding areas, damaging energy facilities and causing some power outages, officials said. 

Ukraine’s air force said that its air defense systems destroyed all of Russia's 39 Iranian-made Shahed drones that targeted Ukraine overnight in what it said was a “massive attack”.

"Russians launched several waves of Shahed drones. Targeting critical infrastructure facilities. Air defense is at work," Kyiv Governor Oleksiy Kuleba said. 

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 40 drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight. Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces.