An Iranian armed exile group based in Iraq on Wednesday accused the Tehran government of killing a father and son who were linked to the Iranian opposition.

The Mujahideen Khalq group called on international human rights bodies to condemn the killing this month of Sohrab Akbari, the father of opposition activist Ali Akbar Akbari who was allegedly killed in custody last year.

"In an act of vengeance, the mullahs' anti-human regime brutally murdered Mr. Sohrab Akbari, the father of the Iranian nation's hero, Ali Akbar Akbari," the group said in a statement faxed to Reuters office in Baghdad.

"In letters to international human rights bodies, the Iranian resistance called on them to condemn the savage murder of Mr. Sohrab Akbari by Iran's criminal rulers," it added.

"On April 6, Intelligence Ministry agents and members of the Guards Corps attacked Mr. Akbari (the father) as he was working in the field and crushed him under the wheels of a tractor," the statement said.

It said the dead man's 20-year-old son Ali Akbar had been killed in Iran last August "under the Intelligence Ministry's brutal torture."

According to the statement, Akbari senior, aged 61, was an agriculture worker in Ilam in western Iran.
 
 

Mullahs' Regime Attributes Lies to Foreign Countries And International Bodies, Iran Zamin News Agency, April 28

The Foreign Affairs Commission of the National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement on Wednesday indicating that the propaganda organs of the religious, terrorist dictatorship ruling Iran have in recent weeks attributed totally false remarks to officials and spokesmen of European foreign ministries and the United Nations.

The Commission said that the media contacts with the United Nations in New York and these foreign ministries indicate that despite the clerical regime's high-powered propaganda, except for Britain's Foreign Office - which has special ties with the mullahs' ruling Iran - no government has condemned the Mojahedin over the operation to punish Maj. Gen. Ali Sayyad Shirazi.

The target of the operation was a military and armed officer and according to international conventions, that operation could not be described as terrorism.

Contrary to the regime's false propaganda, the press offices of the United Nations and most European countries say they have simply repeated their usual position on terrorism in respond to repeated and persist inquiries by the mullahs' official news agency, IRNA.

That such a position has been distorted and used against the Mojahedin in the clerical regime's propaganda must be seen in the context of the mullahs' dire propaganda needs against the Iranian Resistance.
 
 

Clinton Eases Terror Sanctions, United Press International, April 28

WASHINGTON—President Clinton has instituted fundamental changes in the way economic sanctions will be imposed on nations Washington accuses of supporting terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction.

The immediate impact of the decision will be felt by Niki Trading Co. , an American commodities firm that has been attempting to persuade the Commerce Department to issue a license for the sale of 3.5 million metric tons of wheat and other grains to Iran, a deal valued at $500 million.

[Other reports indicate that US court rulings on behalf of the families of victims and subjects of Iranian terrorism may complicate any deals between American companies and the Iranian government.]
 
 

Iran Council Disqualifies Candidates, The Associated Press, April 28

A hard-line committee has disqualified five moderates elected to the Iranian capital Tehran's municipal council, including the top two vote-getters, newspapers reported Wednesday.

Former Interior Minister Abdollah Nouri and Saeed Hajjarian Kashani, a former adviser to President Mohammad Khatami, were among the five men whose names did not appear in the final list of municipal council officers, Iranian newspaper Emrouz reported.

It said the list was released Monday by the electoral supervision board, which is dominated by hard-liners.

The elections, held in February, provided another battleground in the ongoing power struggle between the conservative ruling clergy and the supporters of Khatami.

The electoral supervision board and the pro-Khatami Interior Ministry had each claimed it had the sole right to supervise the polls and have previously clashed over the results.

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