BRIEF  ON  IRAN, No. 237
        Representative Office of
        The National Council of Resistance of Iran
        Wednesday, August 23, 1995



        3421 M Street NW #1032, Washington, DC 20007


Khamenei's Key Fraud Pawn Extricated from Indictment,
From a statement by the Secretariat of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris, August 22

        According to the reports of the Khomeini regime's
official media, the $400 million fraud case, called the
greatest theft of the century, concluded with a death
decree for the first row convict, Fazel Khodadad, and a
life sentence for Morteza Rafiqdoust, brother of the
managing director of the "Foundation of the
Downtrodden" and the former commander of the
Khomeini regime's Guards Corps.
        In this way, the Khomeini regime has extricated its
important element, Mohsen Rafiqdoust who heads the
autonomous economic complex running most of the
industries and services in Iran. It is commonly
acknowledged that the major fraud could not have taken
place without the help of the former Guards Corps
commander.
        The scandal also involves Khamenei, the regime's
leader, and Rafsanjani. Before this, Khamenei and Yazdi,
the regime's Chief Justice, tried to intervene and play
down Rafiqdoust's crime and strengthen his position.
        With the execution of the first row convict, the
judiciary can cover up the leads in this major fraud
scandal, and protect its main pawn who takes direct
orders from Khamenei.
        The large number of fraud cases uncovered one
after the other these days reveal the omnipresent
corruption and the plunder by the clerical ruling
apparatus who have driven the country's economy to the
verge of annihilation.


A Woman Tops Central Secretariat of National Council of
Resistance of Iran, Associated Press, August 21

        Auvers-sur-Oise - In a statement on Monday, the
NCR's European headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise
announced that a 38-year-old woman, Mrs. Mahvash
Sepehri, is appointed to head the central secretariat of
the National Council of Resistance of Iran presided by
Massoud Rajavi.
        Mrs. Sepehri, the senior secretary of the National
Council of Resistance, used to be the coordinator for the
offices of the transitional President in exile.
        The NCR has 235 members and represents six
parties and political organizations which decided to form
seven new committees as the bases of the future
provisional government....


Arafat Slams Iran over Bus Attack in Jerusalem, Reuters,
August 21

        GAZA - PLO leader Yasser Arafat denounced Iran
for funding Islamic militants who claimed responsibility
for bombing an Israeli bus in Jerusalem on Monday.
        "Your money, your bombs and your oil have not
regained an inch of our land for us," Arafat said at Al-
Azhar University in Gaza, addressing himself to Iran.
        "True Moslems do not attack innocent civilians," he
said. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Resistance
Movement Hamas killed four people and wounded 100 in
the morning bus attack in Jerusalem, police said. The
bomber was also killed....
        The PLO and Israel have in the past blamed Iran
for training Hamas guerrillas and providing funds to
Islamic militant groups opposed to their 1993 peace deal.


Mullahs Call Bombing "Natural Reaction," Yet Accuse
Jewish Groups, Reuters, August 22

        NICOSIA - ...State-run Tehran radio said in a
commentary Monday's bombing was "a natural reaction
to the increasing wave of arrests and repression (by
Israel) in the occupied territories."...
        "It appears that, with the daily rising violence and
repression in occupied Palestine, (bombings) have
become an unavoidable choice," the radio added.
        However, the possibility that the blast was the
work of extremist Jewish groups could not be eliminated,
the radio said....