Press Association, February 2 - Britain was accused by a Labour peer today of "shamefully" having persuaded the European Union to defy a ruling of the European Court on the status of Iran's principal resistance group.

The Foreign Office, however, denied that Britain had put pressure on the EU in this case.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale said that last December, the Court annulled a Council of Ministers' decision freezing the assets of the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) on the grounds that it was involved in terrorist acts.

"Now," he said, "the UK has shamefully persuaded the EU's Economic and Financial Affairs Council to defy the court judgement and keep PMOI assets frozen.

"When the UK signed up to the European Court it agreed to abide by its decisions. What the UK has done makes a mockery of the courts and sends another signal to Iran to continue developing nuclear weapons, arming, training and paying 30,000 of its agents in Iraq to kill British troops and trying to topple the government of Lebanon."

Lord Corbett, who is chairman of the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom, went on:

"The Council of Ministers must now implement the court decision and unfreeze PMOI assets and remove it from the list of terror groups."
 
A Foreign Office spokesman said tonight that it was completely wrong to suggest that Britain had pressured the EU to overturn the decision. "It was a completely independent EU decision, he added.

The PMOI is part of the coalition of National Council of Resistance of Iran, a non-violent resistance movement.