News

By Iason Athanasiadis Correspondent / December 28, 2009

A spokesman for Mir Hossein Mousavi, the head of Iran’s opposition "Green Movement," blamed the Islamic Republic for the killing of the former presidential candidate's nephew on Sunday. The spokesman alleged it was a targeted assassination.

Seyd Ali Mousavi, the nephew, was shot through the heart, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a political spokesman for Mr. Mousavi who lives in exile in Paris. He said that Mr. Mousavi had been threatened before his murder to cease his political activities.

“The style of his killing was assassination rather than just a chance shooting in the middle of a protest,” says Delbar Tavakoli, an exiled Iranian journalist living in Turkey. “A car goes to his house, five men get out and shoot him in the stomach from close up.”

State media reported that authorities were carrying out forensic tests on his and four other bodies, preventing them from being buried within 24 hours as is customary in Islamic tradition.

The bodies were “retained in order to complete forensic and police examinations and find more leads on this suspicious incident,” the official IRNA news agency reported.

Another government-aligned news agency, Fars News, opined that the... >>>