Brussels, 16/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - In a joint statement on 13 September, 16 Italian MEPs “strongly called on” the government of Italy and of other European countries, as well as the United Nations Secretary General and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to “take all necessary actions to secure the release” of the seven hostages taken from Camp Ashraf in Iraq and to prevent them being handed over to the clerical regime in Iran. The MEPs in question (EPP - Marco Scurria, Roberta Angelilli, Potito Salatto, Amalia Sartori, Giovanni La Via, Licia Ronzulli, Paolo Bartolozzi, Oreste Rossi, Antonio Cancian, Erminia Mazzoni, Sergio Berlato, Salvatore Tatarella, Antonello Antinoro; S&D - Silvia Costa; ECR - Cristiana Muscardini; and ELD - Claudio Morganti) also firmly condemned the massacre on 1 September of 52 residents of Camp Ashraf (see EUROPE 10920). The UN must also send its monitors to Camp Liberty, which houses over 3,000 members of the People's Mujahedin, “to prevent more attacks”, the MEPs added.
Addressing MEPs on 16 September, the chairman of the Iraqi parliament's foreign affairs committee, Humam Hamoudi, underlined that the Iraqi government had called on the residents of Camp Ashraf to leave for Camp Liberty as, he said, Ashraf is in a region that is a “hot spot (from the security point of view) and the government cannot guarantee their safety”. Expressing great regret for what had happened on 1 September, Hamoudi said: “We have contacted the United Nations so that the representative in Baghdad may carry out an investigation, an autopsy of the corpses to find out how they were killed”. He went on to add that the residents of Camp Ashraf are “people we do not wish to keep with us, as they are former collaborators of Saddam Hussein”. (CG/transl.jl)