Iran reformist leader calls for politicians’ release

Iran’s ex-president Mohammad Khatami is asking Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to intervene in the case of two reformist politicians under house arrest without trial for the past six years.

The two high-profile reformists — Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi — have been under house arrest since 2011 for their part in mass protests that rocked the regime two years earlier.

“I want to request the supreme leader to intervene to ensure that the house arrest is resolved,” says Khatami, who led a reformist government between 1997 and 2005, and is himself banned from appearing in the media since the protests.

“The responsible institutions cannot or do not want to resolve the issue of the house arrests and only your intervention can allow this issue to be resolved, which is in the interests of the regime and would be a sign of its strength,” he says, addressing Khamenei.

— AFP