Iran denies assassinated academic worked on nuclear projects

Officials say Darioush Rezaeinejad was post-graduate electrical engineering student in Tehran Iran has denied claims that an academic shot dead during the weekend was involved in the country’s nuclear programme. Iranian media initially described Darioush Rezaeinejad, who was fired on by gunmen riding on motorcycles in east Tehran on Saturday, as a “nuclear scientist” and an academic associated with Iran’s atomic activities, but officials have since said he was a postgraduate electrical engineering student. Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting on Monday, Iran’s intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, was quoted by the semi-official Isna news agency as saying: “The assassinated student was not involved in nuclear projects and [his murder] was not linked to [Iran's] nuclear programme.” Rezaeinejad, 35, was a masters student at Tehran’s Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology and was waiting to defend his thesis, officials said. In the aftermath of his death, Iranian news agencies reported different and often contradictory accounts about Rezaeinejad’s background. Isna said he had links with Iran’s nuclear agency and Fars, an agency under the control of the Revolutionary Guards, said he was associated with the country’s defence ministry. The similarity between Rezaeinejad’s assassination and that of other Iranian academics during the past two years also led news agencies to associate him with the country’s nuclear activities. Last November, Majid Shahriari, a nuclear scientist, was killed and Fereidoon Abbasi Davani, Iran’s current nuclear chief, survived assassination in co-ordinated attacks carried out by killers who rode up on motorcycles and stuck bombs to their car windows as they left their homes in Tehran. In January 2010, another academic, Masoud Ali Mohammadi was killed in a similar attack in what is now being seen by some analysts as a covert war against Iran’s nuclear activities. Despite several officials who saw a foreign hand in the assassination of Rezaeinejad, Moslehi said on Monday that no evidence was available to link the killing with foreign services. “We have not seen any sign which could demonstrate that the attack had been carried out by foreign services,” the intelligence minister said, according to Isna. “We are investigating what has happened, we haven’t found anything and there are yet some dark and vague issues surrounding the assassination.” According to Iranian media, no arrests have taken place in connection with the shooting. The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, had accused the US and Israel of being behind the assassination. “[Saturday's] US-Zionist terrorist act that targeted one of the elites of Iran is another example which shows the hostility of US towards Iran,” the state news agency quoted Larijani as saying. Other officials including the Tehran governor, Morteza Tamaddon, have also blamed the US and Israel for the attack. “Undoubtedly, this was an American-Israeli project against our intellectuals and thinkers with the aim of discouraging the Iranian nation from continuing the path it has taken,” he was quoted as saying by Abna news agency at Rezaeinejad’s funeral. A month ago, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, said his organisation had received information that “the enemies of the Islamic regime” were plotting more assassinations. Apart from the assassination of its scientists, Iran’s nuclear programme has also suffered from a computer worm, Stuxnet, which was designed to sabotage the country’s nuclear facilities. Iran Nuclear power Nuclear weapons Saeed Kamali Dehghan guardian.co.uk

Posted by on July 25, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.