Iranians blame U.S. for death bid

Press, 28 May 1979, Page 8

Iranians blame U.S. for death bid

NZPA-Reuter Teheran Iran’s ruling Moslem clergy have blamed the United States and “made-in-America” Iranian Leftists for the attempted assassination of a prominent religious and political leader. The victim of the attack on Friday night was Hojatolleslam Hashemi Rafsanjani, aged 45, a powerful antiCommunist preacher reported to belong to Iran’s secret Revolutionary Council. He was seriously wounded in a struggle with two gunmen who tricked their way into his Teheran home and tried to kill him while his bodyguard was at prayers, according to the official radio. If the attack had succeeded it would have been the third killing this month of a prominent figure in Iran’s new regime.

Responsibility for the attacks was claimed by a shadowy guerrilla group which represents itself as ultra-Islamic. But the country’s religious leaders say that the assassins are merely hiding their Leftist, foreign-inspired or anti-reli-gious motives. The most prominent victim of the attacks was Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, head of the all-powerful Revolutionary Council. Ayatollah Motahari and Hojatolleslam Rafsanjani both studied theology under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, the revolutionary gious leader who is now Iran’s unofficial head of State.

Early yesterday two homosexuals and one rapist were executed by firing squad as part of what was officially described as a “campaign to purge Iran of corrupt elements.” Khan Muhammad Mokhtar, aged 35, was executed in the Caspian Sea town of Shahsavar after being convicted of raping his niece, aged nine, according to the Teheran daily newspaper “Ayandegan.”

Musa Ashrafi and Esmail Neisari were found guilty of “offending public decency and having homosexual affairs.” They were executed in Teheran. This brings to at least 19 the number of executions for sexual crimes since last February’s revdluition.