Iranian hard-liner calls opposition leader US agent

A top aide to Iran’s supreme leader called the country’s main opposition figure a US agent and said in an editorial today that he should be tried for committing crimes against the nation.

While hard-line figures had previously demanded Mir Hossein Mousavi be prosecuted for describing Iran’s June 12 elections fraudulent, and leading demonstrations afterwards, the editorial was the first public declaration that the opposition leader was a foreign agent.

Iran’s leadership has been trying to erase any lingering doubts about the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election by portraying the unrest as sparked by foreign meddling.

“It has to be asked whether the actions of (Mousavi and his supporters) are in response to instructions of American authorities,” said Hossein Shariatmadari in an editorial appearing in the conservative daily Kayhan.

Shariatmadari doesn’t hold a government position but is the powerful director of the Kayhan newspaper group and a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He added that Mousavi was trying to “escape punishment for murdering innocent people, holding riots, co-operating with foreigners and acting as America’s fifth column inside the country”.

He called for Mousavi and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami to be tried in court for “horrible crimes and treason,” adding that there were “undeniable documents” proving Mousavi’s foreign links.

About a dozen prominent reformist leaders have been detained since protests began after the elections, lawyer Saleh Nikbakht, who represents a number of them, said. He said they had been charged with “agitating against the ruling system and acting against national security”.

Police said more than a thousand people have been detained in total and 20 “rioters” killed during the violence. Eight members of the paramilitary Basij militia tasked with putting down the protests has also been killed.

There have been no street protests since Sunday, but Mousavi has maintained his opposition to the results, issuing a defiant statement on Wednesday that he considered the government illegitimate and demanded political prisoners be released.

“A majority of the people – including me – do not accept its political legitimacy,” Mousavi said.

Mousavi has been laying low, however, and made no public appearances after the Basij on Wednesday formally requested that he be investigated for the protests.

Iran’s ruling clerics have called the elections “pure” and “healthy” following the supreme leader’s declaration that the results would stand.