Turkey arrests 11 people linked to the kidnapping of an Iranian dissident
Turkey has led a police operation in which it has arrested 11 suspects of collaborating with Iran in the kidnapping of a dissident on Turkish territory. The kidnapped man is Habib Chaab, an Iranian dissident who had been exiled in Sweden for 14 years and was allegedly the leader of the Swedish branch of the Arab Liberation Movement of Ahvaz (ASMLA).
This group is accused by Iran of having committed several attacks, including one in 2018 in the city of Ahvaz that reportedly left 25 people dead in a military parade. Sources linked to ASMLA, however, claim that this attack was subsequently claimed by the self-proclaimed Islamic state.
According to the sources, Habib Chaab went to Turkey last October, where he was supposed to meet a woman who arrived the day before from Iran with a false passport. However, according to the Turkish investigations that have ended with the arrest of these 11 suspects, Chaab was driven to a petrol station where he was drugged, put into a van and taken to Iran through the eastern border of the Van province. Only days after his disappearance, Iranian media announced his arrest in the country.
According to Turkish official media, it is believed that Naji Sharifi Zindasti, a well-known drug trafficker, could be behind the organisation of the kidnapping, in exchange for the withdrawal of the death sentence on him in Iran, which has kept him in Turkey since 2007.
Chaab's entourage claims that the woman who would have brought him to Turkey would have offered him money, which he would have given before, as Chaab was in debt. The fact that they had planned to meet in Qatar in the first place, reinforces the thought that it is an orchestrated movement with Iran in areas where it moves easily.
The way Chaab disappeared in Turkey is similar to a very recent one of another Iranian dissident, Ruhollah Zam, who was already executed last Saturday in Iran. In the case of Zam, who was also in exile in France, he was brought to Iraq, from where he disappeared and then, as in the case of Chaab, he was announced to be arrested in Iran.
Turkey also has very much in mind the death of another dissident journalist, this time a Saudi, Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi embassy in Turkey after he was tricked to travel to the country. The quick arrest of these 11 suspects aims at giving a blow of authority to show that Turkey does not want to be the scene of this kind of events, because in November another Iranian dissident was killed in Istanbul in an attack that is also linked to the Iranian intelligence.
