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Iran ‘Jails Opposition Ex-MP for Six Years’ | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran has sentenced senior reformist and former MP Mohsen Safai Farahani, arrested after the disputed June presidential election, to six years in jail, opposition websites reported on Sunday.

“Last night (Saturday), he was informed of the verdict after spending more than 200 days in custody. He was sentenced to six years in prison,” Kaleme and Parlemannews websites said.

They did not say what charges Safai Farahani was convicted of.

He was rounded up along with scores of prominent reformists and journalists shortly after the June 12 poll which gave hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term amid widespread fraud allegations.

The government accused its reformist opponents of seeking to undermine the regime by instigating mass street protests against Ahmadinejad.

Several have been sentenced to hefty prison terms. Some have been released on bail pending possible appeals.

A veteran industrialist, Safai Farahani, 61, is one of the leaders of Iran’s largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, which strongly backed Ahmadinejad’s leading challenger in the vote, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Safai Farahani also served as an MP between 2000 and 2004, and as deputy economy minister and head of Iran’s football federation under the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami between 1997 and 2005.