Karrubi throws down gauntlet to Iranian government

Defiant opposition figure Mehdi Karrubi dares the country's leaders to put him on trial in an open court.

Mehdi Karroubi casts his ballot in the disputed 2009 election.

Iran's most defiant opposition leader has challenged his government to try him in an open court for the momentous unrest that swept the Islamic republic after the "stolen" presidential elections in 2009.

Mehdi Karrubi threw down the gauntlet yesterday in response to a stark warning from Tehran's chief prosecutor last week that the "leaders of the sedition" will "definitely be prosecuted" for "serious crimes against the state".

The threat by Abbas Jafari-Dowlatabadi was intended finally to silence the opposition which the regime claims is in cahoots with Iran's Western enemies.

But Mr Karrubi proclaimed: "I wholeheartedly would welcome a trial and have strong evidence to support my case."

He added a proviso that he is seemingly confident the "coup" government will never dare accept: "I have a request: that the court be open if the authorities are honest."

Hundreds of opposition supporters were jailed after show trials in the wake of a ferocious crackdown that crushed weeks of protests - in which scores of demonstrators were killed - following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.

Opposition leaders have long stopped calling for demonstrations, refusing to risk their supporters having their heads broken on the streets. But they have continued to post strident denunciations of the "illegitimate" government on their websites.

This has rankled the jittery regime, which wants to focus instead on a host of other pressing problems.

Foremost is the government's desire to ease tensions over its drastic cuts of subsidies on basic items such as food and fuel. It is also struggling to cope with economic sanctions and international pressure to curb its production of nuclear fuel. The regime is also on the defensive over its human rights record.

Nevertheless, Iran, the world's most prolific per capita executioner, yesterday hanged seven people convicted of drug trafficking and a man found guilty of murder, state media reported.

Mr Ahmadinejad is also locked in an increasingly bitter, internecine power struggle with fellow hardliners who accuse him of trying to monopolise power.

The political temperature in Tehran rose on Sunday when he reportedly summarily fired 14 of his senior advisers, some of whom were close to his conservative rivals.

The sackings came just weeks after the president, who has been accused of an overbearing, imperious style, drew widespread criticism across Iran's political spectrum for abruptly and unceremoniously dumping his long-standing foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki. He was an ally of Mr Ahmadinejad's most influential conservative opponent, Ali Larijani, the parliamentary speaker.

Unlike Mr Mottaki, few of those fired on Sunday were household names, apart from Medhi Kalhor, the president's cultural adviser, who made headlines last year when his daughter defected at film festival in Germany.

Mr Karrubi, a septuagenarian cleric, is a close ally of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the man millions of Iranians believe was the real winner of the presidential elections.

Despite calls from leading hardliners, the regime shied away from jailing leaders of the opposition green movement, apparently fearing a fresh outbreak of unrest. That fear may now have receded because there have been no mass protests for a year, some analysts say.

Other experts insist the Iranian regime is bluffing. "I don't think they [opposition leaders] will be tried. It's a Damocles sword approach. They're trying to keep Karrubi and Mousavi in a box to stop them crossing any red lines," Scott Lucas, an Iran specialist at Birmingham University in England, said in an interview.

A spokesman for Iran's judiciary, Gholan-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, bolstered that view yesterday when he denied that there were any immediate plans to prosecute opposition leaders.

The regime has often declared that the green movement is dead. But the government's continued attempts to intimidate its leaders is widely viewed as evidence that the regime tacitly acknowledges that the opposition remains a potent, if latent, force.

The latest threat to prosecute opposition leaders was apparently spurred by a declaration last week from Iran's charismatic former president, Mohammad Khatami. He named "freedom of political prisoners, a return to constitutional law and free and fair elections" as "minimal conditions" that must be fulfilled by the regime for reformists to take part in future elections.

Parliamentary elections, the first major ballot since the fiercely disputed presidential vote in 2009, take place early next year. The regime will rely on a high turn to salvage its battered legitimacy - so opposition threats to boycott the vote are a potent threat.