(AKI) - A former top Iranian nuclear negotiator, arrested last Monday and detained in Tehran's Evin prison, is formally facing no specific charge despite having jeopardised the security of the state. However reports on pro-government news agencies Rajanews and Fars quote unnamed sources speaking openly about spying charges against Hossein Moussavian, a former Iranian ambassador to Germany. Rajanews quotes sources saying that Moussavian, close to the former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, had in recent years collaborated with a "European enemy power" which many in Tehran take to mean Germany. However, according to the daily Asre Iran, Moussavian was "betrayed" by Russian secret service agents who have reportedly given the Islamic Republic evidence of his collaboration with Britain.
The arrest of Moussavian seems to some analysts an attack against Rafsanjani, who in recent weeks has fiercely criticised the economic and foreign policy of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Moussavian had recently published a book on his experience as nuclear negotiator under president Mohammad Khatami. |