Ahmadinejad's Former Police Chief: Special Committee Reported Daily to Leader During 2009 Protests

In an interview published on Sunday, January 20, former police chief Ismail Ahmadinejad revealed that during the protests against the 2009 presidential election results in Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delegated decision-making regarding the response to these protests to a 'special committee' within the Supreme National Security Council, with daily reports on the committee's sessions provided to him. Ahmadinejad stated that alongside him, other officials, including Saeed Jalili, then Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, and Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran's prosecutor, were members of this committee. Ahmadinejad accused the Ministry of Intelligence, under the management of Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje'i, of failing to provide 'intelligence support' to the police before and after the election and of not offering accurate information regarding the protests. He mentioned that the police did not anticipate the scale of the protests, which lasted for eight months, and noted that the Ministry of Intelligence was not supportive during the unrest. Ahmadinejad also discussed the ministry's past actions, claiming that it had guided and encouraged Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani during the 2005 presidential elections. He revealed that the police were monitoring activities leading up to the 2009 elections and were aware of meetings involving key opposition figures. Ahmadinejad emphasized that the police were not caught off guard by the protests but did not foresee their extensive nature. He recounted a conversation on June 15, 2009, where he was instructed by Khamenei to manage the situation as he saw fit, and noted that the protests on June 25, 2009, were the largest since the 1979 revolution.