An Albanian court has convicted an Iranian man of terrorism-related charges and sentenced him to 10 years in prison, court officials said on Thursday.
In a sentence handed down on Wednesday but made public the next day, the Albanian Special Tribunal for Corruption and Organized Crime found Bijan Pooladrag guilty of financing terrorism and of being a member of a terrorist organization. No details were disclosed about Pooladrag’s age, hometown or who he was when he arrived in Albania.
Pooladrag has denied the allegations. He has the right to appeal the verdict.
Pooladrag was arrested two years ago on charges of spying on members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, some 3,000 of whom live in exile in Albania. Previously based in Iraq, the group relocated to the small Balkan country in 2014.
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Pooladrag was originally part of the MEK community, which he left almost three years ago.
A cyber attack in September that temporarily disabled the Albanian government’s digital services led Albania to cut diplomatic ties with Iran. Pictured Police officers walk in front of the Islamic Republic of Iran Embassy in Tirana on September 7, 2022.
(Gent Shkullaku/AFP via Getty Images)
Albania’s relations with Iran have been strained after the country welcomed MEK members. In two separate cases in 2020 and 2018, Tirana expelled four Iranian diplomats for “threat to national security”.
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In September, Albania severed diplomatic ties with Iran following a July 15 cyber-attack that temporarily blocked several Albanian government digital services and websites. Tirana called the disruption an act of “state aggression”.
Since then, there have been several smaller cyberattacks from the same Iranian source.
