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Monday 28 November 2016

Russia Prolongs Pretrial Detention Of Ukrainian Journalist

A court in Moscow has prolonged the pretrial detention of Ukrainian journalist Roman Sushchenko, who has been held in Russia on suspicion of espionage.

The Lefortovo District Court on November 28 ordered the pretrial detention term of Sushchenko extended until January 30, 2017.

Sushchenko, a Paris-based correspondent of the Ukrinform news agency, was detained in Moscow on September 30 on suspicion of collecting classified information.

He was formally charged with espionage on October 7.

The Ukrainian government has denied that Sushchenko is an agent of the intelligence services.

In October, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry handed a protest note to the Russian consul in Kyiv demanding Sushchenko's immediate release.

Based on reporting by TASS and Rapsinews

Tehran Jails Son Of Top Revolutionary Cleric Over Execution Tape
Ahmad Montazeri (file photo)
Ahmad Montazeri (file photo)

A court in Iran has sentenced the son of one of Iran's founding revolutionaries to six years in prison for releasing a decades-old tape in which his father denounced the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.

Media in Iran reported that a clerical court in the city of Qom on November 27 convicted Ahmad Montazeri of charges of "acting against national security" and "releasing a classified audio file." The court initially sentenced Montazeri to 10 years on each of the charges, plus one additional year for abetting "antiregime propaganda."

But it reduced the sentence to six years in view of his lack of previous convictions and the fact that his brother was killed in an attack by a Marxist group that Tehran views as a "terrorist organization."

Montazeri, a 60-year-old Islamic cleric, is the son of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who for decades was the right-hand man to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hossein Montazeri died in 2009.

In August, Ahmad Montazeri released a 40-minute recording of his father from 1988, arguing with leading members of the judiciary about the executions.

According to Amnesty International, Iranian officials executed some 5,000 political dissidents at the end of the country's 1988 war with Iraq. Montazeri was one of the few Iranian leaders to speak out against Khomeini's order to execute the prisoners.

Based on reporting by ISNA, AP, and AFP

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