Khamenei turned down requests by Khatami and Rafsanjani to release Tehran's mayor

Pursuant to the biggest public political feuding among the mullahs, reports from within the clerical regime indicate that Khamenei, the mullahs' leader, has turned down the requests by Hashemi Rafsanjani, the regime's former President, and Mohammad Khatami, the mullahs' new President, to release Gholam Hossein Karbastchi, Tehran's mayor who is presently in detention.

According to these reports, Khamenei did not accept to take any public position on Karbastchi's case and said every form of intervention, for example to halt the proceedings, is not in the regime's interests and will create more problems.

The clerical regime's officials acknowledge that Karbastchi's arrest is one of the most serious crises for the regime in the past ten years following the ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war and has created more turmoil in the already turbulent political atmosphere in Iran.

The escalation of the power struggle among the mullahs and the open confrontation among rival factions will seriously weaken the regime and expedite its inevitable overthrow.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 8, 1998

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