Ahmad Montazeri Calls Espionage Allegations Against Intelligence Ministry ‘Completely False’
Ahmad Montazeri, son of Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, called statements made by “a current official” of the Islamic Republic’s Intelligence Ministry claiming he spied for the ministry “completely false” and “distorted.”
Mr. Montazeri told Voice of America on Monday that “a more calculated intelligence official would speak differently” and “I think such a person doesn’t exist at all, therefore they haven’t even mentioned his name.”.
Several media outlets close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Monday, December 29, published an interview by the Institute for Political Studies and Research with “a current official of the Intelligence Ministry” in which it was claimed that “Ayatollah Montazeri’s household was involved in the house arrest of Ayatollah Seyyed Sadiq Rohani” and “during that period, Ahmad Montazeri was giving confidential information from his father’s household to the Intelligence Ministry.”
According to the reports, the Intelligence Ministry official also claimed that Ahmad Montazeri “was concerned with cleaning up the [Ayatollah Montazeri] household and provided good information, especially after the arrest of Seyyed Mehdi [Hashemi, brother-in-law of Ayatollah Montazeri], he was providing operational information.”
In response, Ahmad Montazeri told Voice of America: “I think these gentlemen saw on the Tasnim website [one of the outlets that published this interview attributed to a former Intelligence Ministry official] that conditions are changing and public opinion is shifting in favor of Ayatollah Montazeri, and they wanted to take some action, but their move is so clumsy that it will backfire on them and become a bad precedent, so that in the future whenever Tasnim news agency publishes anything, people will regard it as a hundred percent lie.”
Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who was head of the Assembly of Experts and deputy leader of the Islamic Republic under Ruhollah Khomeini, was removed from his position due to his criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini.
He was under house arrest at his home for five years between November 1997 and February 2003, and died on December 29, 2009 at the age of 78 in Qom.
According to Ahmad Montazeri, “the reason for Ayatollah Montazeri’s removal from governance” was that “others would not have done this. Whatever orders were issued by judicial bodies, in the Revolutionary Court, everyone remained silent and through their silence were effectively confirming them. He was the only one who opposed, stood firm, and defended the rights of the oppressed.”
Source: Radio Farda
