IRAN: OBSCURE ROYALIST GROUP DRAWS REGIME DEATH SENTENCES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RPO DUBAI 000439

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM IR
SUBJECT: IRAN: OBSCURE ROYALIST GROUP DRAWS REGIME DEATH SENTENCES

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CLASSIFIED BY: Alan Eyre, Director, Iran Regional Presence
Office, DOS.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)

1. (C) SUMMARY: Reports from Iran indicate that as many as five
people listed in the indictments issued in the wake of
post-election unrest have been sentenced to death by Tehran
revolutionary courts. Though details surrounding the individual
cases are murky the convictions do not in fact appear to be tied
to the political turmoil that followed the presidential
election; rather, the government accuses four of the five of
having links to an obscure monarchist group called the Anjoman-e
Padehshahi Iran ("Iran Empire Society"),while the fifth man was
found guilty of membership in the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK). In
announcing the first three death sentences on October 10, a
Tehran Judiciary spokesman they have the right to appeal. END
SUMMARY.




2. (C) On October 10, two days after reformist websites reported
that a Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Mohammad Reza Zamani
to death, Tehran Judiciary official Bashiri Rad told the
semi-official news agency ISNA that three men, whom he
identified only by their initials, had been sentenced to death.
According to Bashiri Rad, two of the men were linked to a
monarchist group called Anjoman-e Padeshahi Iran ("Iran Empire
Society") and the third had ties to the MEK. One set of
initials matched Zamani, who was accused in second post-election
show on August 8 of colluding with "American forces in Iraq" and
the Iran Empire Society to "instigate riots" during and after
the election. Zamani and Arash Rahamipour, whose initials are
also a match, jointly 'confessed' on state television in
mid-August to having trained with American intelligence officers
in Iraq, who in turn put them in touch with Israeli agents.




3. (C) On October 12 and 13, news of two more death sentences
emerged via reformist websites. Both Hamid Rouhinejad and
Davoud Mir-Ardebili are reportedly accused of links to the Iran
Empire Society. According to a report sourced to persons "in
touch" with Mir-Ardebili since his incarceration in Tehran's
Evin Prison, he denies any links to monarchist organizations but
has prepared reports about labor rights issues in Iran that were
broadcast on a radio station based in Iraqi Kurdistan.




4. (C) According to a report by a credible human rights
organization based outside of Iran, the IRIG has two files
related to charges against people associated with the Iran
Empire Society. The first file contains nine names, including
Zamani, Rahamipour, Rouhinejad, and Mir-Ardebili along with five
others who are also presumably being tried on similar charges.
According to the human rights group, the second file contains
charges against three unnamed person.



Iran Empire Society




5. (C) IRPO contacts characterize the Iran Empire Society as a
fringe organization that was headed up a "crackpot" exile based
out of London who went by the name Fouladvand and who reportedly
disappeared on the Turkey-Iraq border in 2007. For a time he
broadcast a television show out of London. The tenor of the
programming was slanted heavily against Islam and in favor of a
restoration of the monarchy in Iran, leading some observers to
hypothesize that the organization was in fact a creation of the
IRIG to discredit monarchists by making them look like lunatics
at best and terrorists at worst. "If it in fact existed," noted
an Iranian political analyst, "it had a handful of members at
most and we'll never know if these men had any association with
the group."




6. (C) COMMENT: Though the conspiracy allegations put forward by
the government tie into their efforts to link the post-election
unrest to a foreign hand, details emerging about the cases
indicate the five individuals sentenced to death are not
associated with reformist intellectuals targeted by the
government after the disputed election. In fact, the indictment
against Zamani states he was arrested several weeks before the
June 12 election. Though the government is unlikely to provoke
further unrest by executing "mainstream" political prisoners
associated with the election, it does have a record of putting
accused 'foreign agents' to death (most recently, Ali Ahstari,

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who was convicted of espionage for Israel and hanged in November
2008). It is currently unclear whether the government would
seek to implement this sentence. END COMMENT
EYRE