Ali Ghashghavi
Ali Ghashghavi was born in 1969 in Babol, a small city near the Caspian Sea. In 1986, he became a member of the Hezbollah in Iran and later entered the military, serving in the 22nd Artillery Group in Isfahan.
In June 1993, Ghashghavi traveled to Turkey and then to Iraq, where he joined the National Liberation Army. Suspicions were raised about Ghashghavi and he subsequently confessed he had been briefed two months earlier at the Babol Intelligence Department by Haji Rezapour and Ghorbanali Sadeghi and given the assignment to infiltrate the NLA and assassinate the “organizational leadership.”1
The PMOI pardoned Ghashghavi and he remained with the NLA until May 1998. His whereabouts were unknown until January 2001, when he returned to Iran, according to the MOIS. It is believed he soon thereafter was given a new assignment and training by the MOIS and then dispatched to Germany, where he applied for asylum.
In Germany, Ghashghavi worked with other MOIS undercover agents who were sent from Tehran to Europe in early 2002, including Ardeshir Parhiskari, Farhad Jawaheri Yar, Edward Termaduyan, and Hassan Sadeghian. The agents were employed by “Roshana,” an association established by the MOIS.
Ghashghavi and other MOIS agents in Europe made false allegations about the PMOI when interviewed by Human Rights Watch for a report published in May 2005.
1) “Mullahs’ Spies.”