Mortazavi: Palizdar is Spreading Ridiculous Lies

The former prosecutor of Tehran, Saeed Mortazavi, referred to Abbas Palizdar's claims about being threatened with execution as "ridiculous lies and an insult to the audience's intelligence" and did not respond to his allegation about taking a copy of his documents abroad. In an interview with the Mowj news agency, which was also republished in the Shargh newspaper on Thursday, August 7, he said: "If I said these things, why didn't he file a complaint at that time, and how come after eight years he finds the atmosphere suitable to express these lies?" In response to Palizdar's statements regarding the "illegality" of the search of his workplace and residence, he declared that Palizdar's actions were "criminal and very bad" and that "this response was very appropriate and proportional to his criminal acts." The former prosecutor emphasized that Abbas Palizdar had obtained documents from the General Inspection Organization and used them in speeches, domestic media, and Persian-language media abroad, such as Radio Farda, to create a "hysteria" against the officials of the system. According to Mortazavi, "many of these initial cases from the Inspection Organization were in the preliminary investigation stage and later in court, they were acquitted and a ban on prosecution was issued for them." He accused Palizdar of acting "in a gang-like, organized manner and publishing documents in the form of CDs." The former prosecutor also stated that in a "wide inspection of Palizdar's home and workplace," many of these cases were discovered, and even a carton of documents was found in his dairy farm's warehouse. Abbas Palizdar, one of the plaintiffs against Saeed Mortazavi, claimed in an interview with ILNA on Sunday, August 3, that Mortazavi had "threatened him with execution" and also told his wife, "Don't wait for Palizdar, go find a father for your children." He alleged that Mortazavi had stated in court that he kept a copy of all his documents and works "outside the country." According to the Shargh newspaper, Saeed Mortazavi did not respond to Palizdar's claim. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, reacted to these statements by saying that Palizdar himself was a prisoner and accused, and "his claims are not very credible." Abbas Palizdar was the secretary of the investigative committee of the seventh parliament regarding the judiciary, who, in 2008, exposed "widespread economic corruption" involving several high-ranking clerics, which led to his arrest. In his speech at Bu Ali Sina University in Hamadan, he named 44 well-known Iranian figures, nine of whom are clerics. He was sentenced to ten years in prison by a Tehran court but was released in July 2009 after serving more than a year in prison on a bail of 350 million tomans. After his release, Palizdar filed a complaint against Saeed Mortazavi, who was the public and revolutionary prosecutor of Tehran at the time of his arrest, for "illegal detention in solitary confinement." Peyman Haj Mahmoud Attar, a lawyer, stated in early August 2014 that Saeed Mortazavi had ten open cases in the government employees' prosecutor's office. This lawyer mentioned the Kahrizak detention center case, the complaint against Fazel Larijani, and the complaint from the parliamentary investigation committee against the Social Security Organization as some of the open cases against Saeed Mortazavi.