Christophe Marchand, lawyer of international criminal law addressed a webinar on October 22, 2020, over the Iranian regime’s terrorism in Europe.

Also, a group of European and US personalities, lawyers and experts joined the online event hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on October 22. They condemned the Mullahs’ regime’s terrorism campaign in the Europe and called on the EU to pursue a firm policy against the Iran’s regime.

Participants condemned the regime’s support for terrorism around the world and called on the EU to end the appeasement policy under the pretext of engagement with the mullahs. It is time to make it clear to the mullahs’ regime that their support for terrorism in Europe soil and across the world will not be tolerated.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran(NCRI), was the keynote speaker at this event. Her message welcomed as a democratic solution to Iran’s future.

Christophe Marchand, lawyer of international criminal law

Thank you very much for giving me the floor. I’m very happy to represent NCRI and the other civil parties in this case with my colleagues and friends, Rik Vanreusel and William Bourdon. I must say I’m quite new in the case, and my first eye was on the importance of this case. I think is the most important case of the 21st century related to terrorism that we are now facing in Europe. Why that? Because it’s really an attack on democracy.

It’s an attack on human rights. And in the first writings we presented to the court, we recalled a lot of reports from Amnesty International, even the last report of September 2020, reports from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the protection of the freedom to persons in Iran.

Those reports are very clear, but the fact that the victim, the persons who are attacked in this case, NCRI, have been the subject of systematic attacks from these authoritarian regimes for decades. It fails because NCRI was protected in the European Union. And because it was protected, the Iranian regime had no other opportunity as a last resort to use terrorism, to use an attack trying to harm these democratic movements. 

Now, the second thing I want to say is we received the legal written arguments from the defense, which are on one side, it can seem very ambiguous, because one is claiming having diplomatic immunity. He claims immunity but this is a very product sold situation because if he claims diplomatic immunity, it means he claims Iranian responsibility. And that is really a key issue. We now have, in writings, the position of the authoritarian Iranian regime, claiming responsibility for this horrible act.

But this will not help us to go for justice, as we always do as lawyers, and this is what we’re trying to have, and we have a lot of confidence in what will happen in courts, because we have a solid judicial system. And this solid Western judicial system will not accept that this authoritarian regime attacks and try to kill innocent people in a very furious and horrible, and terrorist way. 

So, now we are preparing our responses to those legal arguments. And of course, the basic is that immunity is not impunity, and the Iranian people who organized this horrible attack are going to be punished. Thank you for your attention. And of course, this is the demonstration to the contrary to what the Iranian regime said before, that it would be a false flag or a rogue operation. Now, they are claiming that this was an act by the Iranian regime. Thank you very much.