Iran to try 18 over nuclear assassinations

Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Ja’fari Dowlatabadi says 18 people will be tried over their involvement in the assassination of the country’s nuclear scientists.

“Eighteen suspects have been prosecuted and indicted [over the nuclear assassinations]. We will see them on trial next (Persian calendar) year (starting March 21, 2013),” the Iranian judicial official said in Tehran on Sunday.

He added that the Prosecutors’ Office collaborated with the Intelligence Ministry to bring in and indict these 18 terrorists.

Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was targeted on January 11, 2011, when an unknown motorcyclist attached a magnetic bomb to his car. He was immediately killed and his driver, who sustained injuries, died a few hours later at hospital.

The assassination came after some US presidential hopefuls in November 2011 openly called for conducting covert operations against Iran to stop its nuclear energy program, including assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists and carrying out acts of sabotage against nuclear facilities.

Dariush Rezaeinejad, Professor Majid Shahriari and Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi are other Iranian scientists who have been among the victims of such acts of terror.