Torture claims as Ahmadineja given nod

IRAN’S Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, formally endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president for a second four-year term yesterday amid intense political turmoil in the Islamic republic, the state-owned television station Al-Alam reported.

Mr Ahmadinejad, 52, is due to be sworn in before parliament tomorrow. On Sunday the hardline Revolutionary Court warned that anyone criticising its proceedings against post-election protesters could face jail themselves.

The threat came after a chorus of reformists and even some political conservatives labelled a sham televised court hearings of about 100 defendants arrested in the post-election unrest.

The main opposition figure and presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, two former presidents and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard voiced strong criticism of the proceedings.

Mr Mousavi said the confessions ‘‘showed signs of medieval torture’’ and the trial was a ‘‘sham’’ meant to distract attention from allegations of vote-rigging that continued to dog Mr Ahmadinejad. Mr Mousavi and other prominent figures have vowed to skip the swearing-in ceremony tomorrow.

The nation is bracing for further confrontations between supporters of Mr Mousavi and security forces this week.

One of the main mobile phone operators, Irancell, told customers it would be suffering unspecified ‘‘technical’’ problems over the next three days, which coincide with the unrest expected during the start of Mr Ahmadinejad’s second term.

Authorities have charged former officials, journalists and scholars with masterminding the unrest that followed the June 12 election. The charges of acting against national security appear to rest largely on confessions extracted from suspects detained for weeks in solitary confinement without access to legal counsel.

On Saturday at least four defendants implicated themselves in a conspiracy in long, rambling confessions that were aired on television that day and again on Sunday.

Defendants could face jail terms of 10 years if convicted.

The former president Mohammad Khatami denounced the proceedings as a ‘‘show trial’’ in comments published on the website of a charity he oversees.

The mass trial, which the pro-Ahmadinejad Fars news agency said would resume on Thursday, appears to be outside the normal channels of Iranian justice.

The chief of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, has been silent on the proceedings, and some hardliners have condemned the airing of confessions as unconstitutional.

Critics said the indictment, prepared by the office of the prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi, read like editorials in the nation’s most extreme newspapers, especially Kayhan, which on Sunday called for Mr Khatami and Mr Mousavi to be put on trial on charges of acting against God, offences that carry the death penalty. Some legislators have petitioned the judiciary to arrest them.

Agence France-Presse,

Los Angeles Times