Ebriham Khodabandel

AKA – Ibrahim, Abrahim

On November 12, 2002, Ebrahim submitted an official affidavit to the Proscribed Organizations Appeals Commission (POAC), a British court.1 In the affidavit, he said he first began to suspect Anne Singleton had links to the Iranian clerical regime four years earlier. 

“My suspicions regarding my sister-in-law arose from the following chain of events.  About four years ago (that is, in 1998), I received a number of urgent telephone calls from people I knew in the office of the International Red Cross in Bagdad. 

“I was told that an urgent message was waiting for me from my mother (who lives in Iran).  I found it very strange that she had sent me a message to the Red Cross in Bagdad … because it was easy for my mother to contact me, whether directly or through my brother Massoud….I then spoke to my mother in Iran, and asked why she had left this message for me.  She said that my brother Massoud and his wife, Anne, had asked her to, and had told about PMOI members being ill-treated in Iraq, and prevented from leaving Iraq….I found it extraordinary that my brother would do this….”

"I then learned that Anne Khodabandeh had travelled to Iran… I found that surprising because, generally speaking, those Iranians (or their spouses) who are opponents of the regime, do not travel to Iran under any circumstances…

"Then early this year [2002], when I was again in Iraq, I received another call from someone I knew at the International Red Cross office in Baghdad.  I was again told that there was an urgent message waiting for me. When I went to collect this message, I discovered that it was from my daughter… I called my daughter from Baghdad and asked her who had asked her to send a letter to me…she told me it was Anne Khodabandeh…I considered Anne Khodabandeh’s motivation to be suspect…I believe that Anne Khodabandeh is seeking to give the world the impression that I am one of the people whom the Iranian regime, and its agents, says are being held against their will by thePMOI."2

On a visit to his daughter in Birmingham, Ebrahim Khodabandeh saw his brother and sister in law.  He said in the affidavit:

"Anne Khodabandeh told me quite openly that she had visited Iran a few months before, showed me her photographs, and told me that during her visit she had been to Khomeini’s grave. I found this an incredible statement from someone who purports, through her website, to be concerned with human rights."3

Ebrahim said his mother had been contacted in 1997 by the MOIS.  They wanted her to get in touch with Massoud and pass along information that he had been pardoned and could return to Iran.   The MOIS later contacted Ebrahim’s mother and said they were aware that Massoud had married a foreign national and he wanted to stay in England.  The MOIS said there was no problem.4

Ebrahim said after Massoud left the PMOI, their mother was allowed to travel to Britain three times over a six-year period. 

“The first time Massoud was in a very bad financial situation and was living with the help of my old friend in Newcastle.  At the time Anne Singleton was in London.  But the third time, he had purchased a big home and this is while his wife was not working.”5

When Ebrahim and Jamil Bassam, a member of the PMOI, traveled on April 18, 2003 to Syria to meet relatives, they were arrested by authorities.  Ebrahim and Bassam were then illegally transported on a Syrian Airways flight on June 12 to Tehran.  Days later, Ebrahim’s mother received a telephone call from the MOIS informing her that Ebrahim was in Evin Prison.