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* LEF capture "King of Hashish," kill 45 persons
* Seven executed for drug trafficking
* Three to hang for robbery
* Border skirmishes with Turkey continue.
* Alleged MOIS agent convicted of Thai bombing
* More spy rings exposed
* Jannati calls for "Jihad" against Israel
* Iranian children overseas barred from local schools
* Maroufi will stay in Germany
* Rafsanjani loves North Korea
* Bank Director jailed for fraud
* Bomb threat thwarted
* Mujahidin threaten exile radio owner
LEF capture "King of Hashish," kill 45 persons
The LEF claims to have captured Tehran's "King of Hashish" and puthim behind bars, according to Major General Yousef-Reza Abulfathi,commander of the greater Tehran LEF.
Abulfathi said the Hashish King, who was not identified, wasarrested along with fifteen youths who were selling drugs in cityparks. The police also "smashed" two other gangs and arrested 45others, he said. [Kayhan 7/9]
Other reports claimed that anti-narcotics agents had mounted a45-day dragnet in search of the Hashish King. Iranian officialsacknowledged last year that they have executed more than 4,000persons on charges of drug trafficking since 1988, and now say thereare "more than 12,500 foreign drug smugglers in Iranian jails."[Resalat 7/10].
In subsequent reports by IRNA, LEF officials claimed they havearrested 951 drug smugglers and more than 3,000 addicts over the pastfour months, killing 45 "drug smugglers" in clashes in northeasternKhorassan province. [IRNA 7/11].
On a separate report on the 13th, IRNA reported that two more drugsmugglers were killed in a clash in northeastern Khorassan province,along the border with Afgahnistan. Armed police had encountered themwhile patrolling the road linking Kalatteh Menar village to Mashad.[IRNA 7/13]
Seven executed for drug trafficking
Seven persons were executed on drug trafficking charges, TehranRadio announced on July 17, after they had been convicted by a Tehranrevolutionary court. The court claimed the unnamed persons belongedto an international smuggling network recently broken up by police.Tehran Radio claimed that police had seized "more than five tons ofopium, heroin and morphine from the network," but did not say whenthe executions took place [Tehran Radio 7/17]
This brings the total number of announced executions for drugcharges since the beginning of this Iranian year (March 21) to 60. Anadditional 58 persons have been killed in "armed clashes" during thesame period. [FDI archives]
Three to hang for robbery
An Islamic Revolutiunary court in Tehran has convicted threepersons for robbing corporate ofices and women's beauty parlors, andhas sentenced them to hang.
The three were identified as Mohammad Mohammadi, Reza Mohammadiand Mojtabi Moieni. According to Kayhan, they were found guilty ofrobbery, rape and unspecified "other" crimes. [Kayhan7/10]
Border skirmishes with Turkey continue.
Both Turkey and Iran have denied reports that Turkish troopsclashed with a KDPI patrol in Northern Iran on June 22, as announcedby the KDPI and reported by FDI (see last week's newswire and ActionMemorandum 016). Turkish diplomats in Washington said they continueto investigate the incident. They suggested that the KDPI may haveencountered a PKK military patrol and mistaken them for Turkishsoldiers.
Meanwhile, Turkey's deputy interior minister, Erol Caker, told apress conference in Tehran on July 10 that Turkey was stillinvestigating an alleged attack by a Turkish helicopter on a Kurdishvillage inside Iran on June 26, in which six Iranians were killed and15 others wounded. However, he suspected that the helicopter attackoccured after an exchange of fire between Turkish forces and PKKrebels along the Turkish-Iranian border.
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati protested only mildly,saying that Turkey should tell its border officials "to be morecautious" when operating in the border zone, so as to prevent futureincidents. [FDI; IRNA 7/10]
In separate incidents, a Turkish daily reported that Turkish jetfighters had hit an Iranian border post bymistake while attacking aPKK guerrilla camp the day before, klling 20 Iranian soldiers.According to the report, Iranian troops shelled a Turkish border postin reply, killing four Turkish soldiers. [Sabah, 7/14]
Alleged MOIS agent convicted of Thai bombing
An alleged agent of the Islamic Republic's Ministry ofIntelligence and Security was convicted and sentenced to death onJuly 17 by the Bangkok Criminal Court, for the murder of a Thaidriver and a failed attempt to bomb the Israeli embassy inBangkok.
The Deputy chief of Mission for the IRI in Bangkok, JafarzzadehKhaili claimed the convicted man was innocent and that the verdicthad resulted from "pressure from outsiders, from foreign countries...We insist that he is innocent. There is no concrete evidence againsthim," Khaili said.
The convicted man, Hussein Dasgiri, was arrested in southernThailand in June 1994, three months after an abandoned truck wasdiscovered near the Israeli embassy in Bangkok, packed with one-tonneof explosives, detonators, and the body of the murdered Thai driver.Prosecutors presented testimony from 11 eye-witnesses proving thatDasgiri was involved in both the murder and the botched terroristattack. [Reuters, 7/17]
Another Islamic Republic diplomat is facing charges in Rome forthe 1993 murder of the Mujahidin representative to Italy, MohammedHussein Naghdi. A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tehran scoffed at theinvestigation. "Even if the Rome prosecutor general attributes thekilling...to Iran based on the lies of the hypocrites [Ie, theMujahidin] and their agents, it cannot prove it," IRNA quoted aForeign Ministry spokesman as saying.[IRNA 7/17]
Meanwhile, the Mujahidin say that yet another MOIS agent, RezaBarzgar Ma'ssoumi, has been charged by prosecutors in Istanbul forhis alleged involvement in the assassination of a Mujahidin operativein Turkey, Mrs. Zahra Rajabi, and her companion, Ali Moradi, on Feb.20, 1996. [Iran Zamin 7/18]
More spy rings exposed
It must be the witching season, because Iran's MOIS has uncoveredthree more spy rings, according to a local Intelligence Ministryofficial. [Hamshahri 7/11]
These latest rings were uncovered in Isfahan province, but no oneis saying who they were spying for. Last month the Islamic Republicexecuted an army colonel for spying on behalf of Iraq, and arrestedtwo other officers on charges of spying for the U.S. and for Turkey.In April, MOIS officials claimed they had uncoverded dozens of spynetworks "sent to Iran by World Arrogance" (See our 1st Newswire).
Jannati calls for "Jihad" against Israel
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the self-styled leader of Iran'sinternational Hezbollah movements, denounced Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu as a "madman" and urged his followers in Iran andabroad to launch a Holy War against the Jewish state, in a Fridayprayer broadcast by state-run Tehran radio.
"The enemy will not hold back even if we do...You see how thismadman who has recently become prime minister in Israel thinks andwhat he is doing," Jannati said ."We should not forget the Jihad(Holy War) is God's way. And God is with us and will help us."
Two days before Jannati's "sermon," Netanyahu addressed a jointsession of the U.S. Congress and singled out the Islamic Republic asthe main threat to the security and development of the Middle Eastbecause of support for international terrorism, its subversion ofneighboring regimes, and its clandestine nuclear weapons program.
Replied Jannati: "Today they are making Iran an issue, becauseIran is the great power that is standing up to them... But if theystop being concerned about Iran...they will target other (Moslem)states which they easily can devour." [Tehran Radio 7/12]
Iranian children overseas barred from local schools
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati has issued an orderdemanding that the children of Iranian diplomats and governmentemployees posted overseas attend Iranian schools, in a bid to avoidbeing tainted by "foreign" cultures.
The report, carried in the daily Akhbar, said Velayati's order waspart of the current effort to enforce "Islamic values" and preventthe invasion of foreign culture. Velayati told Akhbar he was seekingto expand Iranian schools overseas as a means of "preserving andpromoting Islamic values" among Iranian communities living in exileas well as for the diplomats and government employees.[Akhbar7/21]
Farsi-language schools are run and operated in the United Statesby a series of Islamic Centers financed by the Alavi Foundation inNew York, formerly known as the Mostazafan Foundation of New York.The Alavi Foundation continues to use assets that had been placed inthe United States by the former Shah, that were invested in realestate and run through the New York-based Pahlavi Foundaiton. All ofthe former Shah's assets, including the Foundation, were seized bythe Revolutionary regime in 1979.
Maroufi will stay in Germany
Iranian author and magazine editor Abbas Maroufi will stay inGermany, where he has been living since leaving Iran in March. ATehran court sentenced Maroufi in January to 35 lashes and six monthsimprisonment for "publishing lies" and insulting Iranian supremeleader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the literary monthly "Gardoon."
Maroufi denied, however, that he had requested political asylumfrom Bonn, but said he faced an unknown fate since his visa expiresat the end of August.
Maroufi has been living near Cologne as a guest of the HeinrichBöll Foundation, in the house of the Nobel prize winningnovelist.. [Reuter, 7/12]
Rafsanjani loves North Korea
Islamic Republic president Rafsanjani loves North Korea, and wouldlike to expand ties with the new economic miracle blossoming underthe leadership of the "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-Il, IRNA reports.Rafsanjani has called for ''more exchange of views and bilateraldelegations so that the foundation is laid for stronger ties.''Speaking to North Korea's outgoing ambassador in Tehran, Choi Youg RoNo, Rafsanjani noted that Tehran and Pyongyang shared a ''commonstance...on many international issues." [IRNA 7/17]
While Rafsanjani didn't go into details, one might surmise he wasreferring to Iran's purchases of North Korean ballistic missiles, andNorth Korea's extremely positive experience with the InternationalAtomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Under the watchful eyes of the IAEA,North Korea succeeded in developing a nuclear weapons capabilitybetween 1987-1993, including enough nuclear material for two weapons,U.S. officials have stated publicly.
Bank Director jailed for fraud
Another bank director bites the dust... Abdolhassan Chizri,director of a provincial branch of the Bank Tejarat, and a cleint,Nasser Nassirein, have been sentenced to five and six yearsrespectively for having "misappropriated" $859,000 from thestate-owned bank.
A bank employee, Davoud Hashemzadseh was jailed for six months forhis alleged role in the case.
Since last year's famous Saderat Bank trial, which involved thebrother of Mostazafan Foundation Director General Mohsen Rafiq-doust,the Islamic Republic has been scouring the state-run banks for otherpotential fraud cases involving low-level employees and bank managerswith no obvious ties to the clerics. [Kayhan 7/3]
Bomb threat thwarted
The MOIS has thwarted a plot by an unnamed group to carrying out aseries of bombings and sabotage missions," officials said. The groupwas arrested in June and was composed of individuals from MazandaranProvince along the Caspian sea coast near the border withTurkmenistan. [IRNA 7/3]
In the same category.... a Farsi-language radio in Stockholmreported on July 18 that that day's Iran Air flight from Stockholm toTehran was delayed for 11 hours, following a bomb threat. The Swedishpolice found no bomb and let it fly on, leading to speculation thatthe bomb threat may have been harassment by an Iranian oppositiongroup.
Mujahidin threaten exile radio owner
The People's Mujahidin have publicly threatened the owner of anexile radio station in Los Angeles, obliquely warning that he mightbe assassinated.
In an article carried in the Farsi-edition of the organization'sLondon-based weekly, Iran Zamin, the organization threatenedAssadollah Morovati, the owner of 24-hour Radio Sedaye Iran in LosAngeles, because he has broadcast interviews with former members ofthe organization who have defected. Calling Morovati "one of thetraitors who has had a background of various contacts with the agentsof the Iranian regime in Tehran," the article said his radio programsonly "provide opportunities for the intelligence agencies of theregime to strike at the resistance" (i.e., the Mujahidin).
"Morovati and other characters like him are like dogs who justattack the enemies of the Iranian regime," the paper said. Then itwarned: "there is always a possibility for the Iranian regime toassassinate him and then claim that he has been killed in a factionaldispute of the Iranian opposition." [Iran Zamin 7/8]
"Traitor"... "dog"... Those are certainly strong words from anorganization that claims to be supporting a democratic alternativefor Iran.
Contacted by FDI, Morovati said he had referred the matter to hisattorneys for potential legal action against the paper, and haddemanded a retraction.