Top Iranian reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi told a Tehran court on Saturday there had been no fraud in the June election which returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, the Fars news agency reported. "The 10th (presidential) election was different and it took two or three years to work on it. I think reformists took action to sort of restrict the (supreme) leader," Mohammad Ali Abtahi told a revolutionary court where around 100 people accused of rioting after the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were put on trial in a Tehran.Their prosecution comes as Ahmadinejad, who is due to be sworn in on Aug. 5, sought to ease political tensions by denying any rift with the country's all-powerful supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The official IRNA news agency said the trial of a group of "rioters" had begun, but it did not specify the exact number of those in the dock.
Accusations
Among those in the dock were prominent reformists and supporters of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi and aides of former reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
The leading reformists on trial were Behzad Nabavi, a top member of the Islamic Republic Mujahedeen Organization, Mohammad Atrianfar, prominent member of Executives of Construction, and Abtahi, a member of the Assembly of Combatant Clerics. Nabavi was also the deputy speaker of parliament during the Khatami government, while Abtahi was vice president in charge of parliamentary affairs during Khatami's tenure.
Fars reported that Abtahi has confessed that claims about the vote violation were "baseless."
Iran's top judge, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, ordered the judiciary on Monday to review the cases of detained protesters in a week. Media reports say the accused face charges of having "participated in riots, acting against national security, disturbing public order, vandalizing public and government property and having ties with counter-revolutionary groups."
The post-election violence, mainly in Tehran, left around 30 people dead and hundreds wounded, Iranian officials said. IRNA said according to prosecutors those on trial include people whose photographs were taken while "committing the crimes."
"Some of their accomplices are on the run but they will be surely identified by our dear people and handed over to the law," the agency said.
Following the June 12 vote -- which opposition leaders say was rigged -- up to 2,000 protesters, political activists, reformists and journalists were arrested as hundreds of thousands of people rallied to challenge the results. Most detainees have been released but around 250 remain behind bars and their continued imprisonment has become a rallying cry for the anti-Ahmadinejad movement.