Nuclear 'spy' deepens Iran's
split By Kimia Sanati
TEHRAN - Charges of spying for Britain
persisting against former nuclear negotiator
Hossein Mousavian appear to have intensified rifts
within the alliance of conservatives and
hardliners that made Mahmud Ahmadinejad Iran's
president more than two years ago.
Mousavian, who was a deputy of the Supreme
National Security Council and a member of Iran's
nuclear negotiation team during Mohammad Khatami's
presidency, was arrested on May 1 and charged by
the Intelligence Ministry with espionage and passing
on
information concerning Iran's nuclear program to
foreigners.
An outspoken critic of
Ahmadinejad's nuclear policy, Mousavian is close
to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and has close
political affiliations with conservatives. At the
time of his arrest he was a deputy of the
Strategic Research Center of Ahmadinejad's main
political opponent Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is
chief of the powerful Expediency Council.
Eight days after his arrest, Mousavian was
released on moderate bail and has since kept
silent on the charges that led to his arrest. He
has not made any statements about his case even
after Judiciary Force spokesman Alireza Jamshidi
announced on November 27 a court decision to clear
him of charges of spying and being in possession
of classified documents.
The same court
that cleared him of those charges found him guilty
of anti-system propaganda but decided to suspend
sentencing. Under Iranian law the decision of the
court to suspend the sentence on charges of
anti-system propaganda has to be confirmed by the
prosecutor of the Revolutionary and Public courts
or prosecution will continue.
The decision
of the court was in fact overruled immediately by
Tehran's hardline prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi. In
a statement released shortly after the
announcement of the court verdict Mortazavi
ordered continuation of Mousavian's prosecution.
Ahmadinejad himself has repeatedly alleged
that the judge handling Mousavian's case has been
under pressure to acquit him. "I insist that
secrets given to the foreigners [by Mousavian] be
made public," he told reporters following the
announcement of the verdict.
"Ten days
before the court verdict was delivered Ahmadinejad
threatened to expose those who were pressuring the
judge to acquit him. His intelligence minister
repeated the charges shortly after that.
Pro-Ahmadinejad students demanded that the
judiciary be 'at the government's beck and call',"
a reformist politician in Tehran told Inter Press
Service (IPS).
"They obviously knew the
court had reached a decision and all the fuss can
be seen as the means they used to create a
negative atmosphere against the accused and to
prevent the judge from acquitting him," he said.
Cabinet spokesman and justice minister in
the Ahmadinejad cabinet, Gholam Hossein Elham, and
Intelligence Minister Mohseni Ejei have also
protested against the court decision. Ejei said,
if permitted by the judiciary, his ministry would
publish documents that prove the charges that
Mousavian spied for the British.
While
Ahmadinejad has not named anyone he has provided
enough hints to make it clear that he thinks the
pressure on the judge came from Rafsanjani, who
now leads two of the country's most influential
state bodies, the Experts Assembly and the
Expediency Council.
Rafsanjani, under
whose presidency Iran's nuclear program started,
has in recent months been critical of the
government's "adventurism" in dealing with the
nuclear issue and warned about the danger of
driving the country to war.
"The battle on
Mousavian's case is a continuation of the war
raging between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani, in
veiled words but too obvious not to notice, for
some time now. It can be seen as Ahmadinejad's
wish to suppress opponents of his nuclear and
foreign policies, Rafsanjani in particular, and
Rafsanjani's wish to weigh his own influence, to
know his friends," an analyst in Tehran told IPS.
"Obviously Rafsanjani is far from asking
to abandon the nuclear program. He believes,
however, that Ahmadinejad is unnecessarily making
the issue more and more complicated by alienating
the international community and inviting further
UN sanctions. He is worried the country will be
driven to war by domestic extremists and the US,"
he said.
"Rafsanjani has kept his very old
ties with conservatives and he has managed to
foster friendlier relations with reformists in the
past few years. This is clearly seen from the
results of the election that put him at the top of
a council that has the power to choose our future
supreme leader and even to dispose of the present
one, even if only theoretically," the analyst
added.
"Ahmadinejad's attacks on him
[Rafsanjani] and his political dependents have the
potential to bring the hidden conflicts in the
hardline and conservative camp to light. From some
very prominent conservatives' negative reaction to
Ahmadinejad's persistence in calling Mousavian a
spy, it appears that some conservatives are now
finding it dangerous for their political future to
tie their destinies with Ahmadinejad," the analyst
said.
Former Parliament speaker Nategh
Nouri, who leads the Inspection Bureau of the
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office and is among
his top advisors, is one of the most prominent
conservatives who has openly defended Mousavian.
Parliament speaker Haddad Adel has also
said that the independence of the judiciary from
the executive and the judge's verdicts must be
respected. "If individuals possess documents that
prove the judge in Mousavian's case has been under
pressure, they must produce their documents to the
judiciary," he was reported by the hardline Alef
news portal as saying, presumably referring to
Ahmadinejad's claims of pressure on the judge.
On Ahmadinejad's demand that Mousavian be
tried publicly, Haddad Adel said a decision on
whether a trial should be conducted in public or
not has to be made before the trial and not
afterwards.
Ahmadinejad called the
opponents of his nuclear policy traitors at a
meeting with students of Amirkabir University of
Technology three weeks ago and threatened to
expose them.
In recent weeks, Ahmadinejad
has repeatedly said Iran's nuclear case is closed
and that a third United Nations resolution against
Iran is out of question. However, after a meeting
in London on November 30 between the European
Union's top diplomat, Javier Solana, and Iran's
new chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili,
however, Solana told reporters he was
"disappointed" with the talks that lasted five
hours.
The appointment of Jalili by
Ahmadinejad in October, to replace former chief
nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, is seen as a move
to have total control over the nuclear issue.
"One must also bear in mind that
conservatives and hardliners have traditionally
never had a share of more than 20% of the Iranian
electorate's vote. Initially Ahmadinejad's
popularity rubbed off on them and they were
grateful to him for that," he added.
"But
his popularity will suffer greatly if he loses the
nuclear standoff. He is also increasingly proving
himself a control freak and a person incapable of
fair play. He made former nuclear negotiator Ali
Larijani resign. He has forced several ministers
into resignation rather than sacking them
directly. His circle of trusted friends is
becoming smaller and smaller," the analyst said.
"His allies don't feel safe and are afraid
of going down with him if he looses the nuclear
standoff. So even if some of them are not drifting
to Rafsanjani's bosom, taking Ahmadinejad's
opposite side in the nuclear spy case is a good
way to dissociate themselves from him in the
public eye," he added.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
