Back to Brief on Iran
TEHRAN - The retrial of a German businessman condemned to death for having sexual relations with a Moslem woman will go ahead on September 19 behind closed doors, the press reported on Wednesday.
Helmut Hofer will be "judged again by a special court at Tehran airport behind closed doors," government newspaper Iran said.
Hofer, 57, was condemned to death in January under a law banning sexual relations between Moslems and non-Moslems, but Iran's Supreme Court threw out the sentence in May and ordered a retrial.
The new trial began on July 22 but the court immediately adjourned after the woman alleged to have had an affair with him failed to turn up for the hearing.
A request for bail was refused.
Top German diplomats have met with Iranian officials several times to discuss the case.
The issue reignited tensions between Bonn and Tehran, whose relations were strained over a German court verdict in 1997 accusing Iranian leaders of having ordered the assassination of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant in 1992.
During his initial trial, Hofer said he was ready to marry Vadideh, the Iran newspaper said.
Former Iranian Ministers Found Guilty Of Taking Commissions,
Xinhua, August 18
TEHRAN - Former Iranian Minister of Mines and Metals Hussein Mahluj and his deputy Ali Shekarriz have been found guilty of taking commissions, the latest issue of Arzeshha (Values) weekly reported.
And the State Audit Office (SAO) has ordered the two former ministers to return the money to state treasury, the weekly said.
The case of Mahluj and Shekarriz surfaced when SAO launched investigation into alleged embezzlements in the ministry.
Mahluj and Shekarriz were found to have accepted 540,000 German marks in commission in a purchase deal of aluminum machinery from Germany for their ministry.
Mahluj and Shekarriz have confessed to the offense. Mahluj said that he received the commission on a recommendation by Hassan Ghafurifard, the then vice president and chairman of the Physical Education Organization (PEO).
Part of the money were spent on the football team of the Pirouzi (Victory) Club, including paying for the treatment of Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh, the goalkeeper of the Iranian national football team, Mahluj said.
Some was given to Faeze Hashemi, vice president of the PEO, and daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani to launch women's cycling, he added.
The weekly said that Mahluj was trying to convince the SAO to abort the ruling on him as he is reportedly to be appointed ambassador to South Africa.
The SAO only has the right to ask for the return of the money and the judiciary will decide if to punish the violators.
What US Calls Arms Proliferation, Russian Firm Calls Business As Usual, The Boston Globe, August 19
MOSCOW - In her tiny office at the end of a maze-like corridor in a sprawling Moscow research institute, Ludmila Khromova hardly resembles a threat to America's national security.
But to the Clinton administration, Khromova, in her 40s, a bespectacled physicist in a denim dress, personifies one of the biggest dangers the United States faces: the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction…
INOR [the company of which Khromova is president] was one of seven Russian enterprises on which the United States imposed sanctions last month for allegedly selling sensitive weapons technology to Iran, which is trying to develop ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads. INOR agreed last fall to supply Iran with special metal alloys that the United States alleges could be used to make long-range ballistic missiles….
Iran's Carpet Exports Plunges to 30-Year Low, Agence France Presse, August 20
TEHRAN - Iran's carpet exports have slumped to their lowest level in 30 years despite the introduction of bureaucratic reforms to ease government interference in foreign trade, an official said Thursday.
Keykhosro Sobhe, a member of the board of the guild of carpet exporters, said the country had only earned 114 million dollars in carpet exports in the first quarter of the fiscal year which began on March 21.
The figure compares with 633 million dollars in carpet exports for the whole of last year and 1.8 billion dollars in 1994.
Carpet exports are Iran's second source of foreign earnings after oil.