In a letter written from his cell in Evin prison where he is jailed since August and dated last month, Mr. Ebrahim Nabavi candidly admits to his "mistakes" and denounces his "extremism".

"Confessing" to "exaggerations" and "extremism" in his articles and described as "maladies of the revolution", Mr. Nabavi "regrets" that because of the "stubbornness, deviations and uncompromising attitude" shown by him and his (reformist) colleagues, the public is "deprived" of newspapers that it liked to have.

"Iranian prisons have such a reputation that even if an inmate really makes a critical review of his past, no one would believe", commented Mr. Sadeq Saba, the BBC’s senior analyst of Iranian affairs, referring to Mr. Nabavi’s letter.

What both worried and confounded many analysts and intellectuals was the fact that the letter was first published by the evening daily "Keyhan", the mouthpiece of the hard line intelligence community edited by the leader-appointed Mr. Hoseyn Shariatmadari, an official torturer and an expert for extorting confession from dissidents.

In his letter that has no addressee, Mr. Nabavi says his confessions were not dictated to him, are not addressed to his judge, not made of fear of individual cell, nor is he afraid of being accused by colleagues and friends of having broke down or reached a compromise, "but just because loneliness in a prison cell gives one the time to think deeply, thoroughly, to review his past and judge his actions".

"I was a runner running fast on the track but far from the end. Stopped by coincidence, I got the privilege of living a lonely life, in a cell, thinking to my futile running. Contrary to all ethics, in place of dialogue, we were shouting, in place of informing, we were denouncing, in place of inviting for calm, we were contributing to people’s anger and in place of criticising, we were accusing", Mr. Nabavi writes, rather emphatically.

Observers reminded that in a recent interview with Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), Mr. Mohammad Quchani, also an outspoken reformist political journalist, made similar remarks, saying that the "atmosphere" of the prison offered him the "opportunity" to think, to "see better" and "realising" that Iranian (reformist and independent) newspapers had become "extremely politicised", to "distance" himself from some of his own writings in the past.

Arrested with other colleagues after the Intelligence Ministry acknowledged in January 1999 that his highest ranking agents had assassinated five leading politicians and intellectuals in late November 1998, Mr. Emami, alias Eslami, who served as deputy to Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani’s Information (Intelligence) Minister, was reported to have suicide himself in prison by taking a depilatory powder.

But his friends said he had been killed in order to prevent divulgation of State secrets as to who had ordered the assassinations.