Nasser Zarafshan, a lawyer for the families of two Iranian dissidents murdered two years ago was arrested Sunday, days before the trial of the alleged killers by a military court, his family said Monday.
"He had been arrested. No explanation has been given to us," a relative told AFP.
Zarafshan was arrested in the wake of a warning by the head of the military justice department, Mohammad Niazi, against any unauthorized revelations about the case, due to come before the court on December 23.
He had also been summomed by the trial judge to give evidence.
Zarafhsan represents the families of two writers, Mohammad Mokhtari et Mohammad Pouyandeh, who were murdered in late 1998 along with another writer, Majid Sharif, and two secular opposition figures, Daryush and Parvaneh Forouhar.
Niazi had warned that "anyone who makes speculations or revelations about the serial killings or insults or defames third parties will be prosecuted."
Earlier Zarafshan had said that the four murdered dissidents were not the only people to have been killed, adding that the assassinations followed religious decrees.
Last month investigative journalist Akbar Ganji, who is on trial in another affair, for attending an "un-Islamic" seminar in Berlin, told a revolutionary court senior figures of the regime were behind the killings.
He named in particular former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian and a senior judge, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei.
Fallahian denied the accusation in a statement published Monday in the conservative Jomhuri Eslami daily, saying he was not in office at the time so could not be responsible.
The intelligence ministry has said that a group of its agents carried out the killings but without the knowledge or authorization of their superiors.
A total of 18 people are to go on trial later this month but not their alleged ringleader, Said Emami, who committed suicide in prison in June 1999, according to officials -- TEHRAN (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
