PARIS, February 13, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

The secret burial has taken place in the absence of UN and families of the victims

The Iraqi government has secretly buried the bodies of the 52 Iranian dissidents who were mass-executed in Camp Ashraf Iraq on September 1. The burial took place without the knowledge of the victims' families or U.N. officials assigned to help the Iranian dissidents in Iraq.

The secret burial took place despite 164 days of follow up by representatives and lawyers of Camp Liberty residents, human rights defenders, and the families of the victims.

Iraqi government forces stormed Camp Ashraf, home to Iranian dissidents for 25 years on September 1, and executed 52 of the defenseless residents -- protected persons according to Geneva Conventions -- and took seven, including six as hostage.

Residents' representatives had earlier obtained information about this secret burial. An Iraqi official confirmed the burial on February 11 in meeting with the dissidents' representatives, but he offered no information about the time and place of the burial.

Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, declared: "The clandestine burial of the bodies of the martyrs at an unspecified time and an undisclosed location in the absence of members of their families, as well as the absence and even knowledge of the UN representative who had officially received the bodies of the martyrs in Ashraf on September 2, was carried out to destroy the evidence and save the murderers from a trial and punishment for crime against humanity. This is bare proof of the Iraqi government's complete responsibility for crime against humanity in Ashraf."

"This infamous and anti-human act reminds of the massacre of political prisoners by Khomeini's decree back in 1988 and their secret overnight burial in mass graves," Mrs. Rajavi elaborated.

Mrs. Rajavi once again stressed the need for an independent international investigation by the International Criminal Court into the massacre, mass execution, and hostage-taking in Ashraf and called for the referral of the case to this court by the United Nations Security Council.

Iraqi Prime Minsiter Nouri-al Maliki is attempting to destroy the evidence of crime against humanity because of growing international consensus that Maliki was responsible for the massacre. That view is shared in the European Parliament, in the U.S. House and Senate, by six specialist organs of the UN, by the Spanish Court, by organizations that defend the human rights such as the Amnesty International, and by a large number of prominent international personalities.

The bodies of the 52 victims were handed over to Mr. Francesco Motta, the Chief of Human Rights Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, on September 2, 2013, at the request of Mr. Gyorgy Busztin, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq. The following excerpt is from a receipt signed by Mr. Motta:

"Based on agreement between the representative of the residents of Ashraf and UNAMI, on Sep 2, 2013, fifty two bodies of martyrs who were killed by bullet shots in the massacre of September 1, 2013, were delivered in the presence of Mr. Francesco Motta, Chief of UNAMI Human Rights Office, to be kept in the Baquba Hospital until an impartial international observer will be present for autopsy."

In November 2013, families of the victims filed complaints with the Iraqi Judiciary, demanding the perpetrators of this massacre be punished.  They also sought the right to receive the corpses of their slain family members.

SOURCE Iran News Update