Two US-targeted Iranian officials mock new sanctions

FRANCE 24

AFP - Two of the eight Iranian officials targeted by Washington with sanctions for alleged human rights abuses on Saturday mocked the moves against them by US President Barack Obama as a "joke."

Welfare Minister Sadeq Mahsouli and deputy police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said Obama's decision questioned the very perception of the United States as a superpower.

On Wednesday, Obama ordered that any US assets held by the eight officials, who include Mahsouli and Radan, be frozen. They will also be denied US visas.

"I have never applied for a US visa... these actions question America's superpower status. I also never had a single rial in an account in America," Mahsouli, interior minister during the disputed June 2009 presidential election, was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.

"This issue is like a political joke. Even when I was working in the private sector I did not visit America," he said.

Radan also dismissed Obama's move.

"I thank Mr Obama for making this joke," Fars quoted him as saying. "When Obama read out the statement, he should have said how much I have in my account. I want to know my correct balance."

Their reactions were the first by any of the eight targeted by Washington for alleged human rights abuses during widespread unrest after last year's presidential election.

The eight "share responsibility for the sustained and severe violation of human rights in Iran since the June 2009 disputed presidential election," the US Treasury Department said in a statement on Wednesday.

After the contested poll, won by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters defied a government ban and poured onto the streets of Tehran.

Human rights groups have accused the government of suppressing the uprising through extra-judicial killings, rapes and torture.