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Rights group attacks Iran's 'ministers of murder' |
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Thursday, 15 December 2005 |
 Daily Telegraph
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has packed his government
with former security and intelligence officials responsible for serious
human rights abuses, including the killing of thousands of dissidents
in Iranian jails, a leading human rights group said yesterday.
After Mr Ahmadinejad caused renewed international outrage by calling
the Nazi Holocaust of Jews a "myth", a report by Human Rights Watch,
based in New York, took aim at his hardline cabinet - in particular the
new interior minister, Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi.
Mr Pour-Mohammadi, a notorious former deputy intelligence minister,
held the post from 1987 to 1999 at a time when his agents
"systematically engaged in extra-judicial killings of opposition
figures, political activists and intellectuals", HRW said.
The report, entitled Ministers of Murder: Iran's New Security Cabinet,
links him to the murder of thousands of political prisoners in Iranian
jails in 1988.
"The deliberate and systematic manner in which these extra-judicial
executions took place may constitute a crime against humanity under
international law," said HRW.
Mr Pour-Mohammadi was in charge of foreign intelligence operations from
1990 to 1999, a time when dozens of opposition figures were
assassinated abroad.
"In some of these cases the hand of the Iranian government has been
well established, while in others there are credible allegations of
government involvement. Pour-Mohammadi is at the centre of strong
allegations of direct involvement in orchestrating these
assassinations," the campaign group said.
The minister was also implicated in a series of political murders of intellectuals in Iran in the 1990s, HRW said.
The campaign group also singled out Gholamhussein Mohseni Ezhei, the
new minister of intelligence, or "information", who had previously
served as a member of the judiciary that "spearheaded the prosecution
of prominent reformist clerics".
There was no immediate response from Teheran to the allegations last night.
Western diplomats familiar with Iran say the two men have long been
regarded as leading members of hardline factions that have tried to
roll back political reforms promoted by the former president Mohammad
Khatami. "If either of them were to turn up in Europe for medical
treatment there would be a case for arresting them on the precedent of
Gen Augusto Pinochet," said one European official.
President Ahmadinejad faced another round of western condemnation yesterday when he launched a renewed attack on Israel.
"They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred, and place this
above God, religions and the prophets," he said in a speech broadcast
live on state television.
"If somebody in their country questions God, nobody says anything," he
added. "But if somebody denies the myth of the massacre of Jews, the
Zionist loudspeakers and the governments in the pay of Zionism will
start to scream."
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