TEHRAN: Iran’s Parliament speaker accused US President Barack Obama of state terrorism on Wednesday over the killing in Tehran of a leading atomic scientist.
In an address to Parliament, Ali Larijani, Iran’s former chief nuclear negotiator, reiterated charges that the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad were behind Massoud Ali Mohammadi’s death in a bombing on Tuesday.
Larijani said Iran received information days ago that Israeli and US intelligence intended to carry out terrorist acts in Tehran.
“An American-based monarchy group ... claimed responsibility for this terrorist act. Maybe the CIA and the Zionist regime (Israel) thought they can mislead us with such an absurd statement,” Larijani said. “We had clear information several days ago that the intelligence apparatus of the Zionist regime and the CIA wanted to implement terrorist acts in Tehran,” he added.
“Such filthy actions are easy to carry out but such adventurism will do you no good,” the ISNA news agency quoted Larijani as saying in reference to Obama.
“You have practically promoted acts of terrorism,” he said. “This black spot will be recorded in the dossier of US crimes against the Iranian nation.”
Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at prestigious Tehran University, was killed by a bomb strapped to a motorcycle in the capital’s well-to-do northern suburbs on Tuesday. The daylight killing came amid an increasingly bitter standoff between Iran and world powers over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program.
Larijani insisted that the scientist’s murder would have no impact on Iran’s program. “Now they seek to eliminate nuclear scientists. You will see that these terrorist actions will achieve nothing and the Iranian nation will safeguard its nuclear success.”
Former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami Wednesday condemned the scientist’s killing.
“The unfair assassination of this valuable physics scientist is an indication of a new plot against the Islamic republic,” Rafsanjani said in a message of condolence.
Rafsanjani, an influential cleric, heads the powerful arbitration body the Expediency Council and also the Assembly of Experts which has the power to supervise and replace supreme leader.
Khatami accused “enemies of Iran” of being behind the murder of Mohammadi. “The evil hand which committed this crime is undoubtedly the enemy of Iran and Iranians, and is seeking to create and spread a crisis which is detrimental to everyone,” Khatami said in a similar message.
