As proceedings before an investigating judge in Belgium are not public, Amnesty International does not know the details of the investigation opened against Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, former Speaker of Parliament and President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and therefore cannot comment on it.

In general, Amnesty International calls on all states to ensure prompt thorough and independent investigations whenever allegations of crimes under international law, such as torture, are made. If such an investigation shows that there is sufficient evidence for a prosecution, then, in accordance with international law, Amnesty International calls on states to bring the accused to trial or extradite them to another country for trial, as long as any such trial meets international standards for fairness and does not result in the imposition of the death penalty or other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

Amnesty International notes that under international law the national courts of any state may try people accused of torture regardless of the nationality of the alleged perpetrators or victims, and regardless of where the crimes were committed.
 

Attack Suspect "Islamic Hardliner": Press, Agence France Presse, March 23

TEHRAN - The man held for the attempted murder of Saeed Hajarian is an Islamic hardliner who was involved in attacks on students in last July's unrest in Tehran, Hajarian's newspaper said Thursday.

The Sobh-e Emrouz daily also claimed that Said Asghar and accomplices last year shot dead a girl, identified only as MM, "because they considered her behavior unsuitable."

Asghar took part in attacks on student demonstrations in March 1998 and was present in the raid by police and plain-clothes agents on a student dormitory last July which triggered the worst unrest.

Six arrests have been officially announced but the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) said in statements published Thursday in its own newspaper Mosharekat as well as Sobh-e Emrouz that others had been carried out by an unidentified "military organisation."

"The intervention of this organisation proves it is linked to some of those arrested," the IIPF said.

On Wednesday Sobh-e Emrouz said that those responsible for the attack on Hajarian were former members of an unidentified agency.
 

Revolutionary Guards Blast U.S., Associated Press, March 18

TEHRAN - Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Saturday accused Washington of meddling in domestic affairs.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's announcement Friday demonstrate the "intensified efforts of the White House to create a crisis in Iran," said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The statement did not say how the Guards, who have hundreds of thousands of men in arms and their own air force and weapons industry, intended to respond.

The Guards said Iran deserves U.S. compensation for past wrongs. It said that Iranians have suffered "enormous financial losses" stemming from conspiracies involving the United States.

The secretary of Iran's top security body, Hassan Rouhani, the Supreme National Security Council, called it "new interference in Iran's domestic affairs." [In a dispatch fromTehran, Reuters reported: "From their point of view they are offering a piece of chocolate to what they see as developments inside Iran. This is a very ugly and unacceptable move," said Rouhani.

["The Americans have no right to encourage or persuade any trend," he said. "When I look at the content of her speech I see that this is not a positive step, it is indeed negative. It means American interference in Iran's internal affairs."]
 

Iran to Continue Support For Terrorism, The Jerusalem Post, March 23

The sweeping victory of reformists in last month's Iranian parliamentary election will not lead to a reduction in Iran's support for terrorism or in a deceleration of attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction in the near term, according to the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations committee this week on the issue of worldwide proliferation threats, CIA director George Tenet said Iranian President Mohammed Khatami's priorities will be internally focused and suggested that foreign policy was outside his sphere of influence.

Khatami's efforts at domestic reform "will be counterbalanced by institutions that the conservatives can still control," he said. "On the issues that we follow on the security side, we don't see any diminution in the support for terrorism and we certainly have great concerns about the weapons of mass destruction programs. And I don't think those are issues that the reformist agenda can really take on in the near term."

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