Two Iranian clergymen denied Saturday that they among those who wrote a petition to the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) asking to put an end the to the house arrest of dissident Hossein-Ali Montazeri, reported the Tehran Times newspaper.
A petition reportedly addressed to the SNSC carrying the signatures of ten clergymen said that "it is against the Sharia to place a grand ayatollah under house arrest," the paper said.
The controversial 79-year-old Montazeri was once in line to succeed the founder of Islamic Iran, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as the nation's supreme leader.
But he was pushed aside in favor of the current leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was elected in 1989 by the Experts Assembly, which is charged with electing or removing Iran's supreme official.
One of the clergymen, Ayatollah Mahfouzi, told the paper that the petition was forged.
"I did not sign such a letter, and I know that other ayatollahs whose signatures appear at the end of letter did not sign it," he said.
"No, I did not sign such a letter," the other clergyman, Ayatollah Mo'men, told the paper.
Montazeri, who has been under long-term house arrest, published his memoirs on the Internet in December, providing insider testimony to some of the most dramatic moments of the Iranian revolution and the war with Iraq, said AFP.
He notably claimed that in 1988 he tried to prevent the summary execution of thousands of opponents to the Khomeini regime -- Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
