Iran Sentences 3 Ex-Agents to Die for Slaying Dissidents

Three former intelligence agents were condemned to death Saturday and five others to life in prison for the 1998 slayings of four dissidents who reformists say were targeted by Iran’s hard-liners.

Seven others received sentences ranging from 2 1/2 to 10 years in prison, and three agents were acquitted, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said, in a case held up as an illustration of the struggle between moderates and opponents of reform in Iran’s Islamic government.

Families of the victims accused the military court, which conducted the trial behind closed doors, of participating in a cover-up. The Intelligence Ministry, controlled by hard-liners, has said the killers were rogue agents acting without orders, a theory rejected by many reformists.

The killings began in November 1998 with the stabbing deaths of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, Parvaneh, who ran a small opposition party. In the following weeks, Pouyandeh and Mohammed Mokhtari, both writers, were kidnapped and apparently strangled, their bodies dumped in the outskirts of Tehran.