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5 Tishrei 5760 - September 15, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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News
Iran Claims it has Solid Evidence of Jewish Espionage

by Yated Ne'eman Staff

Iran is sure that 13 Jews accused of espionage are guilty, and has documents to prove it, a senior judge said in comments published in Teheran.

"It is certain that these individuals were spies. There is no doubt about this. The court has enough strong evidence and documents proving this," Gholamhossein Rahbarpour, the head of Teheran's Revolutionary Courts, told the hard-line Jomhuri-ye Eslami daily.

He said the trial is expected to begin shortly in the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz.

The Jews being held include at least one rabbi. They were arrested in March on charges of spying for Israel and the United States. They could face the death penalty if convicted. Seven other Iranian citizens were also arrested.

Both Israel and the United States have said the spy charges are unfounded and, along with France, Germany and Amnesty International, have lodged protests.

Rahbarpour indicated that all Iranian officials are convinced the charges were accurate.

A Jewish member of Iran's Parliament, Manouchehr Eliyasi, said that Iran's Jewish community fears the worst, but is hoping for a "just outcome" in the trial.

"By inflating the facts, the foreign media are trying to harm national unity," Eliyasi said. "I hope the judicial authorities will examine the issue as quickly as possible, while respecting the legal rights of the accused, and submit a just verdict in order to dispel the fears of my constituents."

A Jewish community group in Iran has questioned espionage charges leveled against 13 Iranian Jews arrested for allegedly spying for Israel, a newspaper reported.

The daily Entekhab quoted Teheran's Jewish community council as saying in a statement: "Spying requires certain capacities and equipment, a condition not fulfilled by the accused, according to the knowledge that we have about most of them. Most of the accused are well-known figures of Iran's Jewish and Hebrew teachers."

It said it would collect donations from Iran's Jewish community of about 30,000 to pay for the defendants' lawyers.

Senior Iranian sources have recently been quoted as saying that Israel is involved in the case and that those arrested merely "carried out the instructions of the mastermind of the spy ring," who has not been apprehended.

Meanwhile, Iran has dismissed as biased a new U.S. human rights report that criticized Iran for religious intolerance, the daily Iran News said.

"The U.S. State Department has circulated a biased and unjust view on the status of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is an indication of its ignorance of human rights in this country," the paper quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi as saying.


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