Ahmad Montazeri calls accusation of being an informant for the Ministry of Intelligence a "complete lie"

Ahmad Montazeri, the son of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, called the statements of "a former official" of the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence that he was an informant for the ministry "completely false" and "false."

Mr. Montazeri told VOA on Monday that “a more calculated intelligence official is speaking” and “I think there is no such person at all, so they didn’t mention his name at all.”

On Monday, December 19, some media outlets close to the IRGC published an interview between the Institute for Political Studies and Research and "a then-official of the Ministry of Intelligence," in which it was claimed that "Ayatollah Montazeri's family was involved in the house arrest of Ayatollah Seyyed Sadeq Rouhani" and that "at that time, Ahmad Montazeri was giving confidential information about his father's family to the Ministry of Intelligence."

The Ministry of Intelligence official also claimed, according to these media reports, that Ahmad Montazeri "was concerned with cleaning up [Ayatollah Montazeri's] house and provided good information, especially after the arrest of Seyyed Mahdi [Hashemi, brother-in-law of Ayatollah Montazeri], he provided operational information."

In response, Ahmad Montazeri told VOA: "I think these gentlemen from Tasnim [one of the media outlets that published this interview attributed to a former official from the Ministry of Intelligence] saw that the atmosphere was changing and that public judgment was favoring Ayatollah Montazeri. They wanted to make a move, but their move was so clumsy that it would be to their detriment and would set a precedent that in the future, whatever Tasnim publishes, people would view it as a 100 percent lie."

Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the chairman of the Assembly of Experts and deputy to the then leader of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini, was dismissed due to his criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini.

He was under house arrest in his home for five years between November 1997 and February 2002, and died in Qom on December 19, 2009 at the age of 78.

According to Ahmad Montazeri, "the reason for removing Ayatollah Montazeri from the government" was "that others did not do this. Whatever was ordered in the judicial apparatus, in the Revolutionary Court, everyone was silent and with their silence they actually approved. He was the only one who opposed and stood up and defended the rights of the oppressed."

Source: Radio Farda