Tehran Police Chief Fired Over Raid

Iran has sacked Tehran’s police chief, blamed for a police attack on a student dormitory that provoked some of the worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

State television said Brig. Gen. Mohsen Ansari was introduced at a ceremony Wednesday as the new head of the capital’s police, replacing Brig. Gen. Farhad Nazari.

Newspapers said Nazari had been sacked after an investigation found him responsible for the police attack on the Tehran University student dormitory in July.

An investigative committee of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, or SNSC, the country’s top security body, said in its report earlier this month that Nazari and several other security officials would be prosecuted as a result of the attack.

More than 200 students were injured when riot police and hard-line vigilantes attacked the dormitory complex after a peaceful pro-democracy student rally against the banning of a key moderate newspaper.

At least one person died in the attack, and others remain unaccounted for.

The attack led to a series of protests by angry students that culminated in major street riots in Tehran and scattered violence in other cities, the country’s worst since the aftermath of the revolution.

Security forces and Basij paramilitary units restored order after the riots, during which state banks, public buildings and vehicles were set on fire.

The SNSC report said police commanders at the scene failed to follow orders from Interior Minister Abdul Vahed Musavi-Lari, an ally of moderate President Mohammad Khatami who had sought a peaceful resolution to a standoff between police and demonstrators.

Musavi-Lari nominally heads the police, who ultimately answer to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei is widely seen to be closer to conservatives and hard-liners opposed to Khatami’s program of political and social reforms.

The report said some of the hard-line vigilantes would also have to stand trial for their role in the dormitory attack.

Hard-line officials have blamed the unrest on dissidents backed by foreign states. Moderates have also condemned the violence but insisted that those responsible for the dormitory attack should be prosecuted.

The television report said Ansari would assume the new post while keeping his position as deputy national police chief.

Student protesters have been demanding the ouster of national Police Chief Brig. Gen. Hedayat Lotfian.