Several aides to former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami were out on trial yesterday on charges of masterminding post-election unrest and plotting a "soft coup" in the Islamic republic.
Among the 20 or so people in the dock in the revolutionary court in tehran were a former minister and a number of other top political figures as well as reformist journalists and academics, local media reported.
The prosecution charged that some political groups "with the cooperation of Western media and colonial embassies disrupted the situation and misused the supporters of defeated candidates to launch a soft coup d'etat."
Iran has alreadt stagejd mass trials of around 140 people on offences linked to the massive demonstrations and street violence that followed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hotly-disputed victory in the June election.
The court proceedings, which are open only to Iranian news agencies and which opposition leaders denounced as "show trials", have angered the international community and heightened political tensions as Iran battles its worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The prosecution called for the dissolition of reformist movements such as the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Islamic Revolution Mujahedeen Organisation after accusing them of "lying" and spreading "rumours of fraud in the election".
The news agencies said those in the dock included Khatami aides such as former deputy interior minister Mostafa Tajazadeh, former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh, ex-deputy economy minister Mohsen Ssafaie-Farahani and reformist activists Mohsen Mirdamadi and Abdollah Ramezanzadeh.
Another leading reformist Saeed Hajjarian, who has been under house arrest since his detention on June 16 was also in court, the ISNA news agency said.
In written testimony read out on his behalf by another defendant, apparently for health reasons, Hajjarian apologised for "huge mistakes" he committed due to "wrong analysis."
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