Tehran - The trial is opening in a Tehran military court today of 18 persons charged with involvement in the 1998 serial killings of five dissident intellectuals, writes Michael Jansen. A liberal political activist, Mr Dariush Forohar, and his wife, Parvaneh, were the first to be murdered at their home in December of that year and three writers, Majid Sharif, Muhammad Mokhtari and Muhamman Pouyandeh, were killed in quick succession.
Several of the accused were members of the security services. The conservative clerical establishment claims the killings were carried out by "rogue elements" led by a highranking intelligence official, Mr Saeed Emami, who, allegedly, committed suicide in prison last year.
But an investigative reporter, Mr Akbar Ganji, himself currently on trial for attending a controversial congress last April in Berlin, said the assassinations were the culmination of a campaign to eliminate reformists begun in 1989 under the auspices of the former president, Mr Hashemi Rafsanjani. The then minister of intelligence, Mr Ali Fallahian, is said to have been implicated. Some 80 persons were said to have been killed or disappeared.