TEHRAN, Iran — One of Iran's most prominent pro-reform figures admitted fomenting unrest and asked for the country's forgiveness Tuesday during the mass trial of activists detained in the post-election crackdown. The defendant's party, meanwhile, claimed the confession was coerced.
The courtroom statement by Saeed Hajjarian - who is considered one of the reform movement's top architects and who was shot in the head in a 2000 assassination attempt - was the latest dramatic confession in the month-old trial that the opposition has compared with Josef Stalin's "show trials" of opponents in the Soviet Union.
More than 100 defendants are on trial, accused of trying to overthrow Iran's clerical leadership in a "velvet revolution" by fomenting huge protests over the disputed June 12 presidential election, which the opposition says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by fraud.
Also among the defendants who appeared Tuesday was Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American academic. The prosecutor read out charges against him including espionage, contact with foreign elements and acting against national security.
Speaking before the court, Tajbakhsh appeared to try to speak broadly about foreign interference in Iran, saying "undeniably this was a goal of the U.S. and European countries to bring change inside Iran" and that "the root cause of the riots are found outside the borders."
But he added that "since I've had no contacts with any headquarters inside and outside the country, I have no evidence to prove foreign interference," according to the state news agency IRNA.
Another defendant, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, said he opposed Ahmadinejad's government and rejects the court's indictment. "As a reformer, my position is clear," said Ramezanzadeh, a prominent figure in the same reform party as Hajjarian. "I've put forward my views in my speeches, and I won't change my views."
Dozens of relatives of some of the defendants protested outside the court building during the session until they were forcefully dispersed by police and plainclothes pro-government vigilantes, the pro-opposition Web site Norooz reported.
Hajjarian's political party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, dismissed his confession as forced and vowed its support for him. "What is uttered from their tongue today is not their will," it said in a statement, referring to Hajjarian and other party leaders who confessed Tuesday. It called the trial "another page in a disgraceful show that falsifies the realities of the election."
Tuesday's was the fourth session of the trial. Previous sessions have seen a procession of top reform politicians confess before the court.
The star defendant Tuesday was Hajjarian, who is considered the engineer of the pro-democracy reform program under former President Mohammad Khatami. Hajjarian was one of the students who seized the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and over the next decade he served as a top intelligence official - he is often described as the " walking memory" of recent Iranian history because of his access to classified information and the Islamic establishment's secrets.
But in the 1990s he became a critic of the clerical leadership. In 2000 he was shot in the head from close range by would-be assassins believed linked to hard-liners. He survived, but was partially paralyzed, and he still uses a walker and has difficulty speaking.
He was arrested in the early days after the election and held in secret locations without contact with lawyers or family members. Human-rights groups repeatedly expressed concerns for the 55-year-old's health.
A prosecutor read out a long list of charges against Hajjarian on Tuesday - among them, acting against national security, fomenting unrest, propagating against the ruling system, having contacts with British intelligence and insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The prosecutor asked for the "full punishment" against Hajjarian, though officials have not said what the maximum sentence would entail, and for the dissolution of the Islamic Iran Participation Front.
Hajjarian identified himself to the court, then asked another defendant, Saeed Shariati, to read a text of his confessions on his behalf because of his inability to speak fluently.
"I've committed grave mistakes by offering incorrect analysis during the election. ... I apologize to the dear Iranian nation because of my incorrect analyses that was the basis for many wrong actions," Hajjarian's text said, according to IRNA.
Hajjarian renounced his own writings from the past 10 years and said his ideas "contradict the path of the Imam" - referring to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic Republic.
He admitted that his ideas had led the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran's largest reformist party, "astray, particularly during the election." He and Shariati both announced their resignation from the party.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 08/26/2009