Two organisations have filed complaints to France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office against Iran NPC President President Ghafoor Kargari ©Getty Images

Iran National Paralympic Committee (NPC) President Ghafoor Kargari is being accused of "torture" and "crimes against humanity" in complaint filed to France’s national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office.

France’s Femme Azadi and Sweden’s House of Liberty have officially lodged the complaint after his arrival in Paris for a Chefs de Mission Seminar for next year’s Paralympic Games.

The two non-governmental organisations consider Kargari as a "former commander and prominent member of the Al-Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps" (IRGC) – the ideological army of Iran.

The IRGC has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Parliament.

According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the complaint states that the "IRGC and the Al-Quds group have been at the forefront of the violent repression of peaceful movements fighting for democracy, civil rights and equality between women and men in Iran",

The complaint reportedly describes Kargari is one of the founders of the Islamic Resistance Movement of Azerbaijan - "an Azerbaijani Shiite Islamist armed group supported and financed by the IRGC".


AFP also reports that the complaint considers that Kargari "necessarily participated in or became an accomplice to the acts of barbarism and torture perpetrated by these groups in Iran, Azerbaijan and more generally in the Caucasus and in Central Asia".

Kargari is also accused in the complaint of participating in the "design and implementation of the policy and strategy of these two groups, which could also qualify his actions as crimes against humanity".

Emmanuel Daoud, the lawyer representing Femme Azadi and House of Liberty, told AFP that Kargari’s presence in Paris is "an affront and an insult to all the victims of Iranian repression, starting with women".

The Iran NPC announced last week that Kargari would travel to Paris for the Chefs de Mission on August 24 where heads of delegations received updates on a series of areas including accommodation, ticketing and transportation.

Kargari was due to leave France yesterday.