Mousavi faces 10 years' imprisonment

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran's embattled opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, faces a new threat after the Basiji militia accused him of "offences against the state" and "disturbing the nation's security", charges which carry a sentence of 10 years' imprisonment.

The militia, which played a key role in the brutal suppression of street protests, has become known as the "enforcers" of the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and are unlikely to have made the allegations against Mr Mousavi without receiving his authorisation to do so.

The Basiji high command wrote to the chief prosecutor asking him to take action over Mr Mousavi. It claimed that "evidence" would follow which showed his culpability in the disturbances over the disputed elections.

Mr Mousavi broke a week-long silence yesterday to denounce the election result as a "coup". "A majority of the people - including me - do not accept its political legitimacy," he said of the government, adding: "There's a danger ahead. A ruling system which relied on people's trust for 30 years cannot replace this trust with security forces overnight."

He was joined by Mehdi Karoubi, another candidate, and the reformist ex-president Mohammed Khatami in making statements which bring them into further conflict with Ayatollah Khamenei who has upheld the result and declared that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the winner.

The men said that it was their "historic responsibility to continue our protests and not to abandon our efforts to preserve the nation's rights".

Mr Mousavi asked for the release of the "children of the revolution" who had been taken away by the police and the Basiji. Earlier, state television said that all but one of nine Iranians who worked for the British embassy in Tehran had been released, The Independent reported.