HARD LINE REV.GUARDS GENERAL CONDEMNED TO EIGHT MONTHS FIRM PRISON
PARIS 27TH Feb. (IPS) Iranian reformists hailed the condemnation of General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, one of the Revolutionary Guard's most vociferous and hard line commanders to eight months of firm jail, saying high judges showed their independence from the conservatives and leader-controlled Islamic Judiciary.
A supreme Appeal Court upheld a previous sentence passed a year ago against General Naqdi, Commander of the Law Enforcement Forces Intelligence Unit it accused of illegally arresting local mayors, keeping them in secret jails and forcing them to make "confessions" against former Tehran Mayor Qolamhossein Karbaschi under physical and mental tortures.
Pardoned by the leader, Mr. Karbaschi was freed last month after having served half of his prison term but sources in Tehran said his release was obtained by the former president ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to lead his election campaign.
Nevertheless, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani was badly humiliated by Iranian voters, as he finally got into the Majles (parliament) as Tehran's 30th candidate, with many people, including some officials who spoke privately, insisting that there was rigging in his favour to save him a second runoff.
General Naqdi was condemned to 4 months of firm prison for torturing the accused mayors and torturing them in most degrading forms in the one hand and to another four months for insult, fabricated charges and calumny against Mr. Karbaschi, accusations that partly paved the way for the arrest of the former Mayor and his subsequent condemnation to two and half year of imprisonment in 1998, payment of billion Tomans (hundreds of US Dollars) he was accused of embezzlement and abuse of powers, charges general Naqdi had brought against him based on confessions by the jailed mayors.
A hard line fundamentalist Guards Commander, General Naqdi made himself famous last year after having announced publicly that he would personally kill with his own hands the three young students who had written and published a satirical short play named "Resurrection in Time of Examination", a play published in a student's bulletin with very limited circulation but that senior hard line clerics had pronounced as having insulted Mehdi, the Shi'a Muslim's 12th imam who went into hiding at his eighth birthday some 1000 years ago to resurrect when the world would be saturated with sin and injustice.
Under pressure from orthodox ayatollahs who denounced the play as a "sacrilege" and called for the execution of the young students, they were arrested and immediately sentenced to prison, but were subsequently pardoned by ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i in a move to appease public anger.
Commenting the decision of the Supreme Appeal Court, a lawyer-journalist who asked for anonymity said this is a prove that despite pressures and the fact that the Judiciary is controlled by the hard line ayatollahs, yet Iranian high judges could be courageous and impartial.
He said the sentence of General Naqdi, one of the Guard's high ranking commander and close to the leader was also a message to other officers not interfering in politics or replacing the justice. In his opinion, the ruling could also pave the way for the "opening" of "tens' of similar complaints that had never been reviewed in the past.
"But most important of all, the imprisonment of General Naqdi could be the beginning of the closure of secret prisons operated by the Intelligence Ministry and the Revolutionary Guards where innocent people are held and tortured and sometimes disappear, with the location of them not being known even by official authorities.
However, it was not known by Sunday if General Naqdi had been transferred to prison or remains at large. ENDS NAQDI IMPRISONNED 27200