Mr. Sahhabi’s came in the form of a strong letter written from jail to his children, warning them to "stop at once" all the efforts they deploy, including calling on Iranian organs, like the reformists-dominated Majles and international organisations and world influential personalities like Mr. Kofi Annan, the General Secretary of the United Nations, in order to have him freed from prison.

The new series, prepared in collaboration between "Keyhan", the VVIR, the Revolutionary Guards intelligence section and the leader’s newly formed security service started last month, featuring the confessions of Mr. Ali Afshari, an outspoken students leader.

On the pretext that the meeting was sponsored by the United States and "Zionist circles", the Iranian Islamic Judiciary, ordered by ayatollah Khamenehe'i, had all but few participants arrested and closed all pro-reform and independent publications.

In the letter that was published Sunday in the evening daily "Keyhan", the mouthpiece of Mr. Khameneh’is’ private Intelligence service, Mr. Sahhabi also repeats that what he says are the "fruit" of long months of reviewing his past activities, "without anyone’s involvement or help", "ripe reflections over a past full of mistakes that had made him a new man".

Mr. Sahhabi’s "confessions" surprised no one in Iran, only that instead of talking "freely" and "on his own request" to the leader-controlled "Voice and Visage of the Islamic Republic" (VVIR, the Iranian Radio and Television), as was the case of Mr. Afsahri, his was sent to Keyhan by the Islamic revolution tribunal.

"Whatever you do, you can not white washes and delete from my activities and our plans and projects, hatched with the help of outsiders, including the CIA (the US Central Intelligence Agency) working towards overthrowing the religion-based regime", Mr. Sahhabi tells his children, reiterating that their efforts, copied from an internet site and showed to him, "made me ashamed".

After confessing that he was working with the United States to "topple" the Islamic system, Mr. Sahhabi, the owner and Publisher of the banned "Iran Farda" (Tomorrow’s Iran) continue, asking: "Can anyone deny that efforts by myself and others like me to turn the government into a non-religious one conform with the desires of the United States? Can you deny the fact that I had created an organisation that though it looked like being a coalition of different groups, but it was a counter-revolutionary formation aimed at creating havoc and anarchy?"

"At the time of the July 1999 (student) unrest in Tehran, I met the envoy of an American official who proposed that the disturbances should be spread to other parts of the country," the veteran dissident "reveals" in his letter, failing to identify the so-called American official, or where and when the meeting took place.

The authorities provoked the six-days unrest after they ordered thugs, backed by Law Enforcement Forces, revolutionary guards, security services plain-cloth agents to attack students who, hours before, had peacefully staged demonstrations to protest the closure of the daily "Salam", the pioneer of reformist newspapers that flourished after the victory of Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami in the 23 May 1997 presidential elections.

In a related article, Keyhan, said the Office of Consolidating Unity (OCU), Iranian students largest organisation that supports the embattled President Khatami and in which Mr. Afshari was an influential leader is "fed" by the American CIA and "by a certain gang or circle inside and outside the country".