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TEHRAN - The Iranian Supreme Court has rejected a last-ditch appeal by Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi against his conviction last year on corruption charges, the official news agency IRNA reported Tuesday.
"The Supreme Court has rejected a request from (Karbaschi's lawyer) Bahman Keshavarz for a full re-examination of the case because of a procedural error," a statement quoted by the news agency said.
The Tehran mayor, who is currently out on bail, now faces arrest at any time to serve a two-year jail term imposed in December.
His only hope is a possible pardon from Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The supreme court rejected a previous appeal by Karbaschi for a full retrial, a justice official announced earlier this month.
Judiciary spokesman Fotuvat Nasiri
Savadkuhi said then that it would be up to the head of the judiciary Ayatollah
Mohammad Yazdi to decide when the verdict is carried out.
Sanctions Pose Little Risk To U.S. Economy - Report, Reuter, April 12
WASHINGTON - Trade sanctions imposed by Washington on rogue states may hurt companies, but pose little risk to the U.S. economy as a whole, a congressional report released on Monday said.
International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman hailed the Congressional Budget Office report as proof that Congress can use sanctions as a tool in foreign policy without undermining U.S. economic health.
"The anti-sanctions movement has been based on what are shown by this study to be myths -- the myth that sanctions are imposed willy-nilly without adequate consideration, and the myth that sanctions are unduly costly to the economy," the New York Republican said in a statement.
CBO said it found little evidence that multilateral or unilateral sanctions hurt U.S. growth.
CBO cited a 1997 study, which estimated
that the United States may lose just $1 billion in income from all current
sanctions, including sanctions on the United States by other countries.
That figure represents just 0.01 percent of a national income of more than
$6.6 trillion.
Deadly Blasts And An Itinerant's Tale, Los Angeles Times, April 17
BUENOS AIRES--The tipster surfaced a week before the terrorist bomb destroyed a Jewish community center here in 1994 and killed 86 people, the bloodiest anti-Semitic attack ever in the Americas.
His name was Wilson Dos Santos… Dos Santos explained that his ex-girlfriend, an Iranian prostitute whom he met in Buenos Aires, belonged to a terrorist cell that had bombed the Israeli Embassy in Argentina two years earlier. The terrorists were preparing to bomb another Jewish target in Buenos Aires, a building undergoing renovation, he said.
"Something big is going to happen," he said. He babbled that his life was in danger and that he had already sounded the alarm at the Brazilian and Israeli consulates in Milan.…
On July 18, 1994, a white Renault van packed with 600 pounds of explosives rammed into the entrance of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Assn. (AMIA) in Buenos Aires' congested Once garment district, the heart of Latin America's largest Jewish community…
Both attacks appear to have been masterminded by Iranian agents and executed by Hezbollah terrorists, according to Argentine authorities…
In the AMIA case, several of the accused Argentines frequented the tri-border area. And the investigation has detected suspicious phone calls before the 1994 attack from a mosque and a travel agency in Foz de Iguacu, both alleged terrorist fronts, to suspected Iranian spies in Buenos Aires who did reconnaissance, according to Argentine officials and a confidential FBI report…
In April 1992, Dos Santos met Nasrin Mokhtari, the Iranian woman he later accused of being a terrorist… Mokhtari hung out at an Iranian butcher shop near the AMIA, Dos Santos told the Argentine investigators. There she introduced him to two Arab friends--Guillermo, a tough-looking, bearded man, and Hassan, a cabdriver who chauffeured her free of charge. Dos Santos accompanied the driver and Mokhtari on visits to the Iranian Embassy, waiting nearby while she did business inside, according to his account….
Investigators believe that this network, along with Hezbollah terrorists and Argentine accomplices who provided the van used in the bombing, was coordinated by the former cultural attaché of the Iranian Embassy...
"He is the chief suspect," said Palacios of the anti-terrorist unit.
The attaché, Mohsen Rabbani, was barred from Argentina after testimony by an Iranian defector identified him as the espionage chief in the region…