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IRAN-ESPIONAGE-TRIAL
8 Iran environmentalists accused of ‘spying’ appear in court
TEHRAN, Jan 30, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Eight environmentalists accused of “spying” on Iranian military bases appeared in court Wednesday for a closed-door trial, the official news agency IRNA reported.
“The environmentalists were summoned to the court,” Mohammad-Hossein Aghasi, a representative of the accused, told IRNA.
Aghasi, however, was not present in court as the state designated its own hand-picked lawyers to represent the defendants, IRNA reported.
“I, as the lawyer of Sam Rajabi, one of those accused in the case, was not invited to the trial,” Aghasi was quoted as saying.
Four of the environmentalists were accused in October of “corruption on earth” — a charge that can carry the death sentence in Iran.
Another three defendants are accused of espionage and the last has been charged with “conspiracy against national security”, according to IRNA.
Around a dozen environmentalists were arrested early last year on espionage charges.
One of them, Kavous Seyed Emami, a 63-year-old renowned university professor with dual Iranian and Canadian citizenship, allegedly committed suicide in prison in February, a fortnight after his arrest.
Military authorities told the judiciary the accused had tried to “get close to military centres and get military information about these centres, under the cover of environmental activities,” the prosecutor said.
Last September, the head of Iran’s environment department, Isa Kalantari, called for clarification on the fate of the environmental activists.
“We are not asking for their release or for their execution, we just want their fate to be clarified. This is part of their citizenship rights,” he said.
BSS/AFP/PI/1850