A Danish court has found three members of an Iranian separatist group guilty of promoting terrorism in Iran and gathering information for an unnamed Saudi intelligence agency.
The court found that the three members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) gathered information about individuals and organizations in Denmark and abroad and on Iranian military affairs.
They were also found guilty of passing the information to a Saudi intelligence service.
The court said most of the proceedings were held behind closed doors because of the “relationship with foreign powers and for the safety of the accused and others.” The men pleaded not guilty, the court added.
The three men, aged 40 to 51 and including one Danish citizen, were not identified according to Danish rules and face up to 12 years in jail. The District Court in Roskilde, near Copenhagen, said a sentence would be announced next month.
The three were arrested in February 2020.
The case against the three men dates back to 2018 when one of them was the target of a foiled attack on Danish soil believed to be sponsored by Tehran in retaliation for the killing of 24 people in Ahwaz, southwestern Iran, in September 2018.
The Iranian regime, which considers ASMLA a terrorist group, formally denied the attempted attack in Denmark, but in 2020 a Danish court jailed a Norwegian-Iranian for seven years for his role in the plot.
The failed 2018 attack put the Danish Security and Intelligence Service on the trail of the trio's ASMLA activities.