What happened to Iranian opponent Habib Chaab? Arrived from Sweden in Istanbul on October 9, the leader of an Iranian Arab separatist group, the Arab Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), disappeared the same day. His traces were lost in the Beylikduzu district, on the European side, where he had an appointment with an Iranian national who had arrived in Turkey the day before.
It was not until the beginning of November that Iranian deputy Mojtaba Zonour confirmed the detention of Habib Chaab in Iran. A few days later, television broadcasts a video in which the 47-year-old admits working for the Saudi intelligence services and confesses his group’s involvement in the deadly attack, which took place in September 2018 during a military parade. in Ahvaz, in southwest Iran, causing the deaths of around 20 civilians and soldiers. Since then, the Iranian media explain that the opponent, also having Swedish nationality, was arrested by the Turkish authorities, before being extradited to Iran.
But Ankara finally denied, Monday, December 14, the Iranian version, announcing the arrest of thirteen Turkish citizens in several cities of the country (Istanbul, Ankara, Van) for their alleged participation in the kidnapping. The intelligence services (MIT) suspect the defendants of having kidnapped Mr. Chaab in Beylikduzu. “It has been established that people involved in the disappearance of an Iranian dissident were also carrying out espionage activities against our country”Turkish police said in a statement.
The involvement of a drug “godfather”
According to an anonymous official close to the investigation, quoted by the Turkish press, Habib Chaab, barely arrived in Istanbul on December 9, went to a gas station in the Beylikduzu district. An Iranian woman with whom he was previously in contact was waiting for him in a van, where he was captured and then drugged.
His captors took him to Van province, near the Iranian border, where smugglers brought him to Iran to hand him over to the authorities. The mysterious woman with the van has disappeared. She would have returned to Iran, according to investigators, who suspect her of having entered Turkey with a false passport.
This scenario was allegedly orchestrated by the henchmen of a major Iranian drug trafficker, Naji Sharifi Zindashti, well known to the Turkish police. In 2007, this mafioso was arrested in Istanbul with 75 kilos of heroin in his possession. Two years later, he was released from prison thanks to the prosecutor Zekeriya Oz, who had made him play the role of “secret witness” in the major lawsuits brought against the country’s military and security elite.
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