A newspaper editor seen as close to Iran's top authority said on Saturday defeated election candidate Mirhossein Mousavi and a former pro-reform president had committed "terrible crimes" which should be tried in court. In a commentary published in his hard-line Kayhan daily, editor-in-chief Hossein Shariatmadari suggested Mousavi and his supporters in last month's disputed election had acted on the instructions of the United States.
"An open court, in front of the people's eyes, must deal with all the terrible crimes and clear betrayal committed by the main elements behind the recent unrest, including Mousavi and Khatami," he wrote, referring to former President Mohammad Khatami, a leading reformist who backed Mousavi in the election.
Another hard-line newspaper, Javan, said 100 members of parliament had signed a letter to the judiciary calling for the leaders of "post-election riots" to face trial, pointing to Mousavi and fellow defeated moderate Mehdi Karoubi. The June 12 poll stirred the most striking display of internal dissent in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution and strained ties with the West.
At least 20 people died in post-election violence last month. The authorities have portrayed mass pro-Mousavi protests, which erupted after official results showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been re-elected by a landslide, as the work of local subversives and foreign powers.
Ahmadinejad, in a speech in Tehran to mark Mines and Industry Day on Saturday, said Western powers were whipping up controversy over the Iranian election to divert attention from their economic problems. "The countries suffering from the financial crisis have tried hard to divert the world public opinion from this huge crisis, for instance they created the swine flue issue or they have tried to make something else from our election," he said.
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