Five British MPs escaped death after Iran diplomat ‘smuggled bomb on flight’

Theresa Villiers arrives at 10 Downing Street for a cabinet meeting in November 2019.

Tory MP Theresa Villiers

(Image credit: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

published 27 November 2020

Five MPs cheated death after an Iranian diplomat smuggled a bomb onto a commercial flight for a planned attack in Paris, according to court documents.

The agent had intended to use the “Mother of Satan” explosive device at a rally in the French capital that was attended by a 35-strong delegation of British politicians and officials, The Sun reports. The same type of bomb was used in the Manchester Arena attacks and during the 2015 massacre in Paris.

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Conservative MPs Bob Blackman, Matthew Offord, David Amess and Theresa Villiers and Labour’s Roger Godsiff attended the rally, in June 2018, along with other high-profile guests including Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But the target of the plot was Maryam Rajavi, the head of an exiled Iranian opposition group.

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Blackman told the newspaper that had the device been detonated, “the US would undeniably have declared war on Iran - and it was only because the plot was foiled, World War Three was averted”.

The Iranian alleged to have masterminded the plot, Asadollah Assadi, was “an undercover intelligence operative who brought the explosive device to Vienna from Tehran in his baggage”, Politico reports.

According to court papers, Assadi carried the bomb in a diplomatic bag, exempt from security searches, on an Austrian Airlines flight, and then drove the device to Luxembourg. But the terror plot was foiled when a married couple allegedly tasked with then transporting the device to France and carrying out the bombing were arrested in Brussels.

Assadi was arrested at a petrol station in Germany, while driving back into Austria.

He goes on trial in Antwerp today alongside the couple, Amir Saadouni and Nasimeh Naami, and a fourth man.

Assadi’s lawyers have argued that he is protected by diplomatic immunity and should not have been arrested. Iran has “denied any connection to the alleged bomb plot”, which Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has described as a “false flag” operation.

The case will have “grave ramifications for EU-Iran relations, renewing attention on Tehran’s record of state-sponsored terrorism” at a time when European leaders are hoping to revive the Iran Nuclear Deal alongside president-elect Joe Biden, says Politico.

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Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs.

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a masterâ€™s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.