Former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi released from detention

The caretaker of Iran’s Social Security Organization and Tehran’s former prosecutor has been released from detention.

The Office of Tehran’s Prosecutor earlier announced that Saeed Mortazavi was arrested on Monday night, but did not give any reason for the arrest.

On February 3, Iran’s Majlis voted to dismiss Labor and Social Affairs Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami over his failure to remove Mortazavi from his post as the head of the Social Security Organization.

During the open impeachment session, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad played a tape showing a meeting between Mortazavi and Fazel Larijani, the brother of Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

The video purportedly showed Fazel Larijani attempting to use his family’s political status for financial gain. Fazel Larijani has declared that he would file a lawsuit against Mortazavi and President Ahmadinejad for what he called an intrusion of privacy.

Mortazavi has been previously accused of involvement in the deaths of three detainees in Kahrizak Detention Center during the unrest following the 2009 presidential election in Iran.

In December 2009, a statement from the Judicial Organization for the Armed Forces announced that, according to forensic information, three of those detained during the country’s post-election events died while being held at the Kahrizak facility.