Hardline Iran editor calls for Mousavi to face trial | World | Reuters - 0 views
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Iran Iran Elections 2009 Mir Hossein Mousavi Mehdi Karroubi
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A newspaper editor seen as close to Iran's top authority said on Saturday defeated election candidate Mirhossein Mousavi and a former pro-reform president had committed "terrible crimes" which should be tried in court. In a commentary published in his hardline Kayhan daily, editor-in-chief Hossein Shariatmadari suggested Mousavi and his supporters in last month's disputed election had acted on the instructions of the United States.
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"An open court, in front of the people's eyes, must deal with all the terrible crimes and clear betrayal committed by the main elements behind the recent unrest, including Mousavi and Khatami," he wrote, referring to former President Mohammad Khatami, a leading reformist who backed Mousavi in the election. Another hardline newspaper, Javan, said 100 members of parliament had signed a letter to the judiciary calling for the leaders of "post-election riots" to face trial, pointing to Mousavi and fellow defeated moderate Mehdi Karoubi.
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"All they did and said was in line with the instructions announced by American officials in the past," Shariatmadari, who is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote.
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Karoubi's Etemad-e Melli website said on Saturday he had visited families of some of the many people detained after the election, including former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who was part of his campaign and was arrested on June 16. "The recent detainees were not opponents of the system. They are members of the establishment who had some complaints against the result of the election," Karoubi said.
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Iran's police chief, Ismail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, on Wednesday put the total number of detainees in connection with the unrest at 1,032 and said most had been freed. The rest had been "referred to the public and revolutionary courts", he said.
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The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said on Tuesday reports from within Iran indicated that as many as 2,000 people, including opposition leaders, professors, journalists, students and protesters may be in detention across the country.