Iranian reformer faces death penalty

AN IRANIAN prosecutor has called for “maximum punishment” of a senior reformer for acting against national security, a crime punishable by death.

Saeed Hajjarian, who was disabled after an assassination attempt in 2000, was among several prominent opposition figures charged with fomenting the huge street protests that followed the June poll, in the fourth mass trial to have taken place.

The vote plunged Iran into its most serious internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution, exposing deep divisions in its ruling elite and further straining ties with the West.

“The prosecutor ... called for maximum punishment for Hajjarian considering the importance of the case,” the official IRNA news agency reported yesterday.

Analysts regard the trials as an attempt by the authorities to uproot the moderate opposition and put an end to protests that erupted after the election, which defeated candidates say was rigged in favour of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Several of the accused are members of Iran’s leading reformist party, Mosharekat, whose website denounced the Revolutionary Court session as another show trial forming part of what it called an “ugly scenario”.

It said 200 relatives of those on trial gathered outside the court and police failed to disperse them.

At the same trial, the state broadcaster said Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh was accused of acting against national security and of espionage.

Those on trial include former deputy interior minister Mostafa Tajzadeh and business newspaper editor Saeed Laylaz, an outspoken critic of Ahmadinejad’s economic policies.

Some, such as former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh and ex-government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, had appeared also at an earlier trial session.

IRNA said the accused were “the plotters of recent riots and disturbances” after the vote, which the authorities have portrayed as a foreign-backed bid to topple the Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership.

State television showed Hajjarian – a former deputy intelligence minister turned architect of the reform movement – and his fellow accused sitting in rows in the courtroom in prison clothes as the prosecutor read the charges.

“Hajjarian is charged with acting against national security and propaganda against the Islamic establishment by spreading suspicion of vote-rigging ... and provoking illegal protests,” the indictment stated.

He also met with a person linked to MI6, Britain’s spy service, IRNA said.

In a statement read out in court, Hajjarian said he had “made major mistakes during the election by presenting incorrect analyses ... and I apologise to the Iranian nation for those mistakes,” Fars news agency reported.

Most of the accused officials held positions during the 1997-2005 presidency of Mohammad Khatami, who backed moderate opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in the election.

The authorities have not yet arrested Mousavi and Khatami despite repeated calls from hardliners.

Western countries and human rights groups have condemned the trials. After the first session on August 1, Mousavi said confessions by some of the accused were made under duress.

Iran has held three trials already this month of more than 100 detainees, including a former vice president and other politicians, on charges including acting against national security, which is punishable by death under Iran’s Islamic law. A French teaching assistant and two Iranians working for the British and French embassies were among those tried earlier.

No sentences have been announced after these trials.

Rights groups say hundreds of people, including pro-reform politicians, journalists and activists, have been held since the election. Many are still in jail.

Iran rejects vote rigging accusations and accuses the West, particularly the US and Britain, of inciting the unrest, in which at least 26 people were killed.