Albania Denies Tehran's Claim About Transfer Of MEK Devices To Iran

Albania has denied Tehran's claim that the computers seized from the exiled opposition group MEK during a police raid have been handed over to Iran.

The Albanian police informed Iran International on Friday that they had not contacted the Iranian government or any Iranian citizens as part of their investigation into the group's activities.

This contradicts an earlier claim made by a spokesperson for the Iranian government, who stated that several electronic and storage devices seized during the recent Albanian police raid on the MEK's Camp Ashraf had been handed over to Iran's regime.

The Iranian official alleged that the Islamic Republic is now retrieving data from the devices to identify the group's cells and has achieved "promising" results thus far.

On June 20, the MEK reported that around a thousand Albanian police officers raided their exile center, Camp Ashraf, using tear gas and pepper spray. The group stated that one of their members, identified as Ali Mostashari, was killed, and over a hundred others were injured.

Albania later admitted that both police officers and Iranian dissidents were injured during the raid at the Ashraf-3 camp near Manze, a small hill-town approximately 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) west of Albania's capital.

However, the authorities disputed the claim that the raid directly caused the man's death.

The Camp Ashraf 3 compound in Durres, Albania, serves as the MEK's first home outside the Middle East. It was established a few years after the 2013 massacre in the original camp in Iraq, in which 52 members died and seven went missing, leading to the relocation of the group.