Jamshid Tafrishi

Jamshid Tafrishi was born in Tabriz, in northwestern Iran, on April 13, 1955.  Few details are available on his early years.  In 1988, he traveled from Iran to Turkey, where he made contact with local PMOI supporters and asked to join the NLA.

In May 1989, Tafrishi came to Iraq and joined the National Liberation Army of Iran.  But about a year he submitted a letter to the NLA, stating "I am unable to continue my stay with the NLA, because of personal problems and preoccupations."  He said he wanted to go to a United Nations refugee camp, which was approved.  In January 1991, Tafrishi contacted the PMOI office in Baghdad and requested financial assistance so he could leave Iraq.  He was given about $1900, which he used to travel to Jordan and to Europe, finally settling in Denmark as a political refugee.

According to Tafrishi, he was recruited in 1991, shortly after arriving in Turkey.

Main Tasks

Working undercover for the MOIS, Tafrishi met with journalists, government officials, and others.  In meetings, he accused the PMOI of violating human rights.  He sought to recruit other disaffected PMOI members and distributed false information to key targets in Europe.  As examples:

• In 1994, Tafrishi was part of an extensive campaign to convince Human Rights Watch that the PMOI was engaged in human rights abuses.
• In 1996, he traveled to Geneva along with 13 others to meet Professor Maurice Danby Copithorne, then the UN Special Representative on Human Rights in Iran.  The meeting was organized by {ln:Nasser Khajeh-Nouri}.  Tafrishi said the main objective of the meeting was “to accuse the Mojahedin of having prisons, and committing torture, execution and violation of human rights on the eve of your anticipated visit to Iran and to request that you would reflect our information in your report."1

After the meeting, Tafrishi was directed by Khajeh-Nouir to send a letter to Professor Copithorne, emphasizing that he had been a prisoner in both Iranian jails and in the Mojahedin camps."2 

Later Tafrishi was introduced by Khajeh-Nouri to a man called "Shamahiri," who helped Tafrishi organize a trip to Singapore to meet with MOIS operatives named Reza and Hossin.  At the meeting with them, Tafrishi discussed "the plans and projects I would have to carry out against the Mojahedin...."3  Tafrishi subsequently learned that Shamahiri was Saeed Emami, the second in command at the MOIS for eight years.

Tafrishi opened a bank account and a postal box in Hamburg for the “Negah” magazine.  “The magazine was to publish the articles that would be given to me,” Tafrishi said, “and also become a channel for them to put money into my account."4

Tafrishi also met with Amnesty International to discuss alleged human rights abuses by the PMOI.

Professor Copithorne

After defecting from the MOIS, Tafrishi sent a letter to Professor Copithorne in which he confessed his earlier allegations about a prison inside  Camp Ashraf were fabrications.

“These [allegations] were in fact completely devoid of truth.  In the organization’s camps there were buildings for temporary lodging individuals who no longer wanted to continue their cooperation with the Mojahedin, during the waiting period while arrangements were being made to send them abroad or to UN refugee camps."5

Jamshid explained there were “no differences between these locations and other residential quarters . . . as far as the facilities and amenities and the food and other requirements were concerned."6

Kurdish Rebellion

Tafrishi was directed by the MOIS to provide information to international organizations and foreign governments alleging the PMOI was involved in suppressing the Kurdish rebellion in Iraq.”   He also participated in media interviews.  In one incident, he was interviewed by an Iranian radio station in Los Angeles. 

Tafrishi said his name was attached to a report on the Kurdish issue that was prepared by Khajeh-Nouri and then distributed to U.S. government agencies and the United Nations.  The UN subsequently tasked {ln:International Educational Development} (IED), an NGO that works closely with the UN, to conduct an independent investigation of the allegations.  The IED concluded in a 1995 report that the allegations were false and the PMOI had been the target of a disinformation campaign by Iranian Intelligence.7

Weapons of Mass Destruction

In 1995, Tafrishi participated in a public meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in which the PMOI was accused of helping the Iraqi government purchase chemical weapons and other WMD.  Khajeh-Nouri said the information would be sent to US and European governments and international organizations.

False Threats

Tafrishi said MOIS agents falsely claimed they had been threatened by PMOI members.  “In one occasion,” Tafrishi said, “on February 16, 1996, when I was living in Germany, I wrote to Chancellor Helmut Kohl and claimed that PMOI intended to assassinate me.”