Tehran, August 26: As Iran holds trials of many top opposition Reformist figures, former president Mohammad Khatami has lashed out at confessions made by a post-vote detainee.
Khatami denounced as ‘invalid’ such confessions ‘obtained in special circumstances’ and strongly condemned them, the ILNA news agency reported on Wednesday.
In a Tuesday court session in Tehran, Iranian-American scholar Kian Tajbakhsh, who is in detention charged with espionage and acting against national security, accused the former president of turning Iran into a safe place for US activities.
Tajbakhsh, a former member of the Soros Foundation in Iran, said in his defense statement that Khatami and Mohammad-Javad Zarif, the then Iranian envoy to the United Nations, met George Soros, the founder of the network, in 2006.
He said the meeting was part of a plan, which began in 1997, when Khatami took office, to ‘overthrow’ the system. He added that Khatami has been ‘constantly’ in contact with the Soros Foundation since then.
In a statement issued by his office a day after the trial, Khatami said reports made during recent weeks were ‘lies and baseless’.
“Such claims are sheer lies and false,” said the statement.
Khatami called on Iranian authorities to ‘stop spreading immoralities and illegal moves, which will harm the Islamic establishment’.
Iran has already held mass trials of nearly 140 individuals charged with masterminding the post-vote unrest.
Following the controversial mass trials of post-vote detainees, the opposition announced that the confessions made in court had been forced.
The opposition and their supporters have also condemned the trials as a ‘sham’ staged by the supporters of the incumbent president.
—–Agencies