'Iran wants assassins brought to justice'

Head of Iran's Islamic Coalition Party Mohammad-Nabi Habibi

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221598.html

A senior Iranian politician has called for the prosecution of the masterminds and perpetrators of the terrorist attacks against Iranian scientists.

“The people's demand is the punishment of the agents behind the assassination [who are] both inside the country and abroad,” Mohammad-Nabi Habibi, the secretary general of Iran's Islamic Coalition Party said Wednesday, referring to the killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan.

The assassination was the latest in a string of terrorist attacks over the past few years that have claimed the lives of Iranian scientists, including those who had either met with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors or were mentioned in the agency's reports as nuclear scientists.

Habibi said Iran's cooperation with the agency was being exploited because the names of Iranian scientists are passed onto Mossad, CIA and MKO terrorists which use this information to carry out assassinations.

“Iran must reconsider its cooperation with the agency,” he added.

On January 11, Ahmadi Roshan, the deputy director of marketing at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, was targeted by an unknown motorcyclist who attached a sticky bomb to his car near Allameh Tabatabaei University in northeastern Tehran.

Ahmadi Roshan was immediately killed as the result of explosion, and his driver, who had sustained wounds, succumbed to his injuries a few hours later in hospital.

The US, Israel and their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to sway the UNSC to impose four rounds of sanctions on Iran. They have also repeatedly threatened Tehran with the "option" of a military strike.

This is while in November 2011, some of the US presidential hopefuls called for conducting covert operations ranging from assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists to launching a military strike on Iran as well as sabotaging Tehran's nuclear program.

The calls for assassinations are not idle threats as a number of Iranian scientists have been assassinated over the past few years. Professor Majid Shahriari and Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi are among the victims of these acts of terror.

On November 29, 2010, Shahriari and Fereydoun Abbasi were targeted by terrorist attacks; Shahriari was killed immediately and Dr. Abbasi, the current director of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, only sustained injuries.

Iran says as the UN Resolution 1747, adopted against Tehran in March 2007, cited Abbasi's name as a "nuclear scientist," the perpetrators were in a position to trace their victim.

According to reports, Ahmadi Roshan had recently met with IAEA inspectors, a fact which indicates that the IAEA has leaked information about Iran's nuclear facilities and scientists.