Iran grants Jundallah defectors immunity

Iran has granted immunity from prosecution to more than one hundred members of the Jundallah terrorist group, a provincial official says.

Speaking on Friday, Governor General of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan Province Ali Mohammad Azad said Iranian authorities had received three hundred requests from members of the terrorist group calling for immunity after their notorious leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, was arrested in February.

“The immunity has been granted to 110 of those [who lodged an appeal],” the official said.

He, however, explained that only those defectors who did not have a private plaintiff were given immunity, while others had to stand trial in a court of law.

The Jundallah group has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Iran, targeting both civilians as well as government and military officials.

In their latest attack, which took place in October 2009, more than 40 Iranians — among them 15 members of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), including top commanders along with several tribal elders — lost their lives when Jundallah terrorists carried out an operation in the border region of Pishin, located in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.

Later in February, Iran arrested Rigi, the leader of the group, aboard a passenger jet flying from the UAE to Kyrgyzstan, where he said he was to meet US intelligence and military officials at the major American Menas military base.

In his confessions, Rigi also said that he had ties with intelligence agencies such as the CIA and said that he had closely cooperated with the security services of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Following Rigi’s arrest, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said that the he also had contacts with the Mossad and certain European countries.