Follow up to 1998 Serial Political Murders
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| By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 3:28 p.m. ET TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Four former agents of Iran's Intelligence Ministry confessed in court Tuesday to playing roles in the slayings of four writers and dissidents, state-run Tehran Radio reported. The four men are among 17 defendants standing trial for the 1998 killings, which became a national scandal. The Intelligence Ministry said its employees were involved, describing them as ``rogue agents,'' and the minister resigned. The trial is being conducted behind closed doors in a military court, and the only reports emerging come from state media. The killings began on Nov. 22, 1998, with the stabbing of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, Parvaneh, who ran a small opposition party. In the following weeks, writers Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh and Mohammad Mokhtari were kidnapped and found dead on the outskirts of Tehran. They had apparently been strangled. Last week, the first of the 17 defendants to testify, Seyyed Mostafa Kazemi, told the court he was one of those who ordered the killings. A second defendant, Mehrdad Alikhani, also confessed to a role in the killings. On Tuesday, three defendants testified that they carried out one or more of the killings and a fourth told the court he played a lesser role. All four are former Intelligence Ministry agents. One of the defendants, Ali Roshani, confessed he killed Mokhtari and Pouyandeh, Tehran radio said. When asked why he did so, Roshani said he was acting under the orders of Kazemi and Alikhani. Another defendant, Mahmoud Jaafar Zadeh, said he killed Forouhar and the third of Tuesday's witnesses, Ali Mohseni, said he killed Forouhar's wife, Tehran Radio reported. The fourth man, Hamid Rasooli, said he provided assistance for the killing of Forouhar and his wife. The radio report did not specify what form the assistance took. The families of the victims withdrew their lawyers from the case before the trial started on Dec. 23, saying they feared the trial's verdict would be ``against justice and the will of the nation.'' Reformist lawmakers and moderate newspapers have also expressed doubts about the proceedings and called for an open trial. Last month, the authorities detained a lawyer for two of the families, Naser Zarafshan, after he made a speech about the killings. He remains in detention. |
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| By REUTERS Filed at 2:39 a.m. ET TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian intelligence ministry chief has confessed to ordering the murders of liberal dissidents in a trial that has shocked the public and embittered Iran's rival political factions. The official IRNA news agency said Mostafa Kazemi, a former head of internal security, ``confessed to his role as the mastermind of the killings of writers and intellectuals,'' in the third closed-door hearing of the case Saturday. Eighteen men, including a number of secret police agents, are accused of murdering four liberal dissidents in late 1998. Many reformists allege that the murders of nationalists Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar, and writers Mohammad Mokhtari and Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh were part of a wider campaign by state-sponsored death squads to silence opposition. The real number of those killed, they say, was much higher with murders and disappearances stretched over some 10 years. Two reformist journalists and a former interior minister have said responsibility for the murders goes much higher. Several senior clerics in the conservative establishment are implicated in the conspiracy, they said. All three are now in jail and the judiciary, dominated by the clergy, has vowed to prosecute anyone else making ''unauthorized revelations'' in the case. The most senior government agent arrested in connection with the killings died in custody after drinking hair remover. Many question the official coroner's verdict of suicide. The presiding judge, meanwhile, said the trial was being held in camera for reasons of protecting national security. ``While we consider all people as insiders,'' the agency quoted Judge Mohammad Reza Aghighi as saying. ``Who can guarantee that an open court would not provide information to the enemies outside the country?'' Moreover, Intelligence Minister Ali Younesi, had insisted the trial be held behind closed doors, he said. Victims' families and their lawyers are boycotting the proceedings in protest at what they say is the removal of evidence and the restriction of the prosecution to only four murders. The affair has not helped moderate President Mohammad Khatami who was swept to power in 1997 elections promising to ensure freedom of speech and the rule of law. More than 30 pro-reform newspapers and journals were banned this year by the conservative judiciary after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei pronounced them ``bases of the enemy.'' |
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