TEHRAN, July 27: A Tehran court dissolved the opposition Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) on Saturday and sentenced 33 of its members to up to 10 years in jail in a move the long tolerated group’s leader promptly slammed as “illegal”.

The 33, who were picked up in a crackdown last year, were found guilty of “attempting to overthrow the regime”, the official IRNA news agency said.

Twenty-one received terms of between nine months and 10 years, and 12 terms of between four months and two years coupled with a fine of between 10 million and 30 million rials (1,250 and 3,750 dollars).

Another eight of the 52 party members put on trial were fined between 10 million and 50 million rials (between 1,250 and 6,250 dollars), while 11 were acquitted.

The news agency did not name those jailed, but court officials said the heaviest terms were reserved for two former ministers — Hashem Sabarian, who was sentenced to 10 years and Mohammad Tavasoli who was sentenced to nine.

Among other top party officials, Khosro Mansurian was jailed for nine years, Hadi Zadeh for eight years nine months and Ali-Reza Hendi for eight.

The liberal IFM, which had been largely tolerated until the 2001 round-up, was founded in the 1960s by the Islamic Republic’s first prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, and is considered close to moderate President Mohammad Khatami and his reformist administration.

Its leader Ebrahim Yazdi, who for the first time attended a congress of the main pro-reform party earlier this month despite himself facing trial, rejected his group’s dissolution.

“The revolutionary tribunal has no right to order the dissolution of a political party,” Yazdi said.

“The trial of a political party like the IFM must be held before the appropriate court and in the presence of jurists.”

The opposition leader, who is himself a former foreign minister, also rejected the conviction of his supporters, saying it was the court that was damaging Iran’s security and not his party.

“(The defendants) are accused of acting against national security even though the intelligence minister (Ali Yunesi) recently told MPs that these accusations were baseless,” complained Yazdi.

“It’s for the intelligence ministry to judge if we have acted against state security, not the court.

“None of the words which the revolutionary tribunal attributes to the accused in its verdict is accepted by the accused themselves and no members of the party said anything which might justify the charges levelled against them.

“We will not accept these charges and we will not accept the verdicts, which are themselves a threat to national security at a time when the country is facing renewed threats from abroad.”

Yazdi was alluding to renewed US pressure on Tehran following President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” speech earlier this year, in which he put Tehran on a par with Baghdad and Pyongyang as an implacable foe of Washington.

The opposition leader vowed that he would “intervene at the highest level to have this case reviewed,” in an apparent reference to his reformist allies within the regime.

Yazdi only returned to Iran in April after a long stay for medical treatment in the United States.

The fact that the conservative-led security services did not arrest him on his return had raised hopes of a more conciliatory line towards his party. —AFP