TEHRAN, (Reuters) – A prosecutor demanded yesterday “maximum punishment” for a senior reformer accused of acting against national security, a crime which can carry the death sentence, in Iran’s fourth mass trial of moderates since a disputed election.
Saeed Hajjarian, disabled since an assassination attempt in 2000, was among several prominent opposition figures in the dock charged with fomenting huge street protests that followed the June presidential election.
The poll 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.
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.
