Tehran, August 03: Tehran Islamic Revolutionary Court says people who were detained during Iran’s post-vote protests can defend their indictment either personally or via their lawyers.
“Tehran’s public prosecutor’s office has drawn up a 57-page indictment for all detainees in order to prove that the recent unrest has been previously plotted and its organizers identified while the role of foreign countries has been verified,” said Branch of the court in a statement.
It added that the first court session of political activists and a number of ‘rioters’ allegedly involved in the unrest was held on Saturday to “read the indictment”.
The statement pointed to a right for detainees that their lawyers can ask for a time to give explanations and said, “Lawyers who were present at the Saturday session did not demand any time.”
“This right, however, is preserved for them for the next sessions,” it added.
The first court session for several detained Iranian opposition figures, including former vice president Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, was held on Saturday to determine the fate of those charged with “acting against national security’ and ‘conspiring with foreign powers to stage a “Velvet Revolution”‘.
Saturday’s trial was held after nearly 3,000 people were arrested in Iran in the aftermath of the unrest that ensued Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in the June 12 vote.
Protests were held in Tehran and some other cities after defeated presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi rejected the election result which declared Ahmadinejad as the tenth president of the Islamic Republic
At least 20 people were killed and hundreds of others injured in the course of the protests staged by supporters of the opposition who dismissed the official election results as “fraudulent” and called for its annulment.
On Sunday, 10 other suspects were put on trial in a closed court session.
In Sunday’s session, however, there were not any ‘known’ political activists among the defendants
—-Agencies