Back to Brief on Iran
A federal appeals court panel yesterday upheld the state Department's listing of two foreign groups as terrorist organizations, although the judges said they had no way to determine whether the designation was fair.
The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam contended that they had been branded terrorists by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in October 1997 based on a mostly secret record with no notice or opportunity to respond. They... argued that there was insufficient evidence to find they engaged in terrorism.
... While the judges upheld Albright's decision, they said the law gave them little discretion to do otherwise.
... The judges said they had extremely limited authority... The judges said they have "no way of judging" the accuracy of the materials...
"For all we know, the designation may
be improper because the secretary's judgment that the organization threatens
our national security is completely irrational and devoid of any support,"
wrote Judge A. Raymond Randolph. "Or her finding about national security
may be exactly correct. We are forbidden from saying . . . we cannot make
any assumption, one way or the other."...
U.S. Count Says State's Record Consists "Entirely Of Hearsay", Reuters, June 26
WASHINGTON - ... But the three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said they did not know whether Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had based her classification of the Mujahideen Khalq Organization on credible evidence and referred slightingly to the procedure followed.
In a 14-page decision released on Friday, appellate Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote, "We...refuse to set aside either designation." But he added that the material Albright used in listing the group consisted "entirely of hearsay, none of it was ever subjected to adversary testing, and there was no opportunity for counter-evidence by the organizations affected."
"As we see it, our only function is
to decide if the secretary, on the face of things, had enough information
before her to come to the conclusion that the organizations were foreign
and engaged in terrorism," Randolph said. "Her conclusion might be mistaken,
but that depends on the quality of the information in the reports she received
-- something we have no way of judging."
State's Accusations "Seek To Appease " Regime Rulling Iran, Associated Press, June 26
WASHINGTON - ... A federal appeals court, in an opinion released Friday, said the law left the judges little room to decide whether Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acted properly in declaring the groups have engaged in terrorist acts that threatened the national security of the United States.
The group said in a statement the State Department's accusations "are completely unfounded and solely seek to appease and placate the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran."
The law governing the list does not require the government to present information that would qualify as "evidence" in a court, the appeals panel said, and any classified information the secretary of state used in reaching a conclusion may continue to remain secret.
Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y., said the department's allegations of terrorism were "merely politically motivated echoes, devoid of any factual basis." Last September, 220 House members signed a statement calling on the administration to remove the Mojahedin from the list of terrorist organizations. "It was not Congress' intent that a legitimate opposition to the Iranian regime be included within that particular list of terrorist groups," the statement said.
"That we cannot pronounce on the question does not mean that we must assume the secretary was right," the court said. "It means we cannot make any assumption, one way or the other."
The People's Mojahedin Organization
is Iran's largest and most active Iranian dissident group, according to
the State Department. Its primary goal is the overthrow of the Iranian
government and the establishment of a secular republic.
Iranian Resistance Consider Appeal, United Press International, June 26
WASHINGTON - Leaders of an Iranian dissident group are still considering whether to appeal a court decision that keeps them on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.
The People's Mojahedin of Iran, which opposes the regime in Teheran, said today in a statement that they were satisfied by "the court's clear opinion that there is no evidence proving the State Department's accusations against the Mojahedin."
"It would have been appropriate for the court to have taken note of this fact in its final conclusion, but throughout the opinion, one comes across the frustration associated with the court's powerlessness....to enter the substance of the claim in order to rectify the injustice of the Secretary (of State's) designation," it said.