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Investigation into the case of Gholam Hossein Karbastchi, the mayor of Tehran, has created serious problems for the mullahs, according to reports from within the clerical regime.
Senior officials in Tehran are concerned that if Karbastchi is put on trial - as promised by the mullahs' leader and the Judiciary - the records of corruption and embezzlement of many of the regime's leaders and ranking officials, including Rafsanjani and Khatami, as well as the massive fraud and rigging during the May 23rd elections that led to Khatami's election, will also be uncovered.
The investigation's results, not made public so far, indicate that everything Karbastchi did was done under the direct supervision of ex-President Rafsanjani and ex-Interior Minister Ali Mohammad Besharati.
The regime's officials now intend to postpone Karbastchi's trial until the World Cup, so as to take advantage of its fever and overshadow the issue.
Grandchild of Former Premier Killed, Reuter, April 27
TEHRAN - The granddaughter of former Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq has been killed as she prepared to leave the country and join her husband in the United States, a newspaper said on Monday.
The daily Jameah said Masoumeh Mossadeq was strangled at her home in a north Tehran district.
The paper said the 49-year-old Mossadeq, a U.S. resident, had been in the process of selling her house before rejoining her husband.
Her assailants fled the scene and police had been unable to identify them, it said.
Hamas Leader to Visit Iran, Agence France
Presse, April 27
TEHRAN - Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, spiritual leader of the Palestinian Islamic militant group HAMAS, is to visit here Tuesday to hold talks with Iranian officials, a newspaper reported Monday.
The English-language daily Iran News, citing an "informed" source, said Yassin would discuss the latest developments in the occupied territories and Palestinian resistance against Israel.
It said Yassin could even hold talks with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.
The 61-year-old guide and founder of HAMAS, which has carried out several deadly anti-Israeli bomb attacks, was released from an Israeli jail in October.
Iran, which calls for Israel's destruction, supports HAMAS in its fight against the Jewish state.
Mullahs' Minister Says Briton Free, Not in Iran,
Reuter, April 27
DUBAI - A Briton reported to have been arrested in Iran on spying charges has been freed and is no longer in the Islamic republic, Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi was quoted as saying on Monday by the official news agency IRNA.
"News of the arrest of this British individual relates to the past," Kharrazi said in an interview with IRNA, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Kharrazi's remarks were the first official Iranian comments on the case after the Tehran newspaper Jomhuri Eslami said on Sunday that the British citizen had been arrested and was alleged to have confessed to spying for Britain.
The hardline daily Jomhuri Eslami had said the man presented himself as a reporter for the BBC.
But the BBC said the man worked neither for its radio nor television divisions.
Jomhuri Eslami on Monday urged Iran's government to send a signal to Britain by "punishing the arrested British spy."
"Iran's decision-making centers should not be indifferent to Britain's espionage operations, and should give a hard smack in the mouth to the evil British before they are tempted to revive their shattered espionage network in Iran," the paper said.
In 1996, Iran passed a law imposing the death sentence for espionage in a variety of areas not covered by earlier legislation, such as giving information to foreigners on the country's social conditions.
Shell to Defy US Sanctions by Developing Gas Field,
Agence France Presse, April 27
NICOSIA - The Anglo-Dutch company Shell is to sign a framework agreement to develop Iran's offshore gas reserves in defiance of US sanctions against the Islamic republic, a specialist review reported Tuesday.
Royal Dutch-Shell has decided to go ahead with the development of two phases of the South Pars field for export to Pakistan, said the Nicosia-based Middle East Economic Survey (MEES).