Trial opens for man accused of killing Iranian nuclear scientist

[News_Editor]

Trial opens for man accused of killing Iranian nuclear scientist

2011-08-23 23:59:31 GMT+7 (ICT)

TEHRAN (BNO NEWS) -- An Iranian man has pleaded guilty to charges of assassinating nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi in January 2010 at the start of his trial in Tehran on Tuesday, the state-run Fars news agency reported.

During the hearing session at a Tehran Public and Revolutionary Court, the prosecutor read the indictment against Majid Jamali Fashi before the family of the scientist asked for a death penalty. In his defense, Jamali Fashi confessed that he was due to carry out five other operations after Ali Mohammadi's assassination.

Iran has blamed the attack on Israel and its intelligence agency Mossad, saying that the agency has organized 'terrorist groups' to carry out attacks against Iranian scientists. Earlier, Tehran's Public and Revolutionary Courts Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi announced that Jamali Fashi was trained in Mossad's military bases.

"The suspect in this case, named Majid Jamali Fashi, had traveled to Israel several times and had received the necessary trainings for the assassination in Mossad's bases," Jafari Dolatabadi said on Sunday.

He also stated that Jamali Fashi had received $120,000 from Israel to carry out the assassination and then returned to Iran, according to Fars news agency.

Mohammadi, an Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist, was killed in January 2010 as a bomb planted in his motorcycle exploded in front of his house in Tehran. Majid Jamali Fashi said in his confessions aired by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on January 11: "I became acquainted with a number of Israeli officers on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway after we had a visit to Israel and I received different training courses, including chasing, running, counter-chasing and techniques for planting bombs in a car."

He added that during the training received at the Israeli garrison he was trained on how to carry out bomb attacks while riding a motorcycle. Jamali Fashi also admitted that he received both psychological and operational briefings for the murder of the Iranian scientist.

Last year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed Israel for the scientist's murder, the first of three assaults on nuclear scientists of the Islamic country. On November 29, two other nuclear scientists were killed in separate bomb attacks in Tehran.

Iran has since claimed that both Israel and the United States have hatched numerous plots to stop its nuclear progress through different measures, including sanctions and assassinations of scientists and university professors.

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