Iranian president-elect ‘finished off’ political prisoners

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 07/07/05

As EU officials prepare to re-enter negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme, allegations are mounting against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country's president-elect.

Opposition groups claim that he was directly responsible for the death of political prisoners in the 1980s.

Ali Safavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the political wing of Mujahedin-e Khalq, a group proscribed by the European Union as a terrorist organisation, told European Voice that Ahmadinejad had fired "the coup de grace shots at executed political prisoners" while working at Tehran's Evin prison.

Safavi said that the incidents occurred during the early 1980s when Ahmadinejad worked for the prosecutor's office, a period which according to Ahmadinejad's biography was spent in the Revolutionary Guard.

Since his election, Ahmadinejad has been accused of participation in the 1979 storming of the US embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis which lasted 444 days.

The Iranian government has denied the accusations.

It described the claims as a US-Israeli plot but they appear to have further damaged relations between Iran and the US.

EU diplomats see US support for the nuclear talks, which are expected to reconvene next month, as vital for their success. The election of Ahmadinejad has also prompted a strong response from some MEPs.

"These are very serious allegations and must be fully investigated. First of all he must not be allowed to enter the EU," said Portuguese deputy Paulo Casaca of the centre-right EPP-ED group.

UK Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson said: "This was a completely fraudulent election designed to dupe the West." Stevenson, a member of the Parliament's Friends of Free Iran group, added: "This man has more blood on his hands than any other world leader could claim to have."

Article reports on claims by opposition groups in Iran, that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new President-elect, had been directly responsible for the death of political prisoners in the 1980s.