LONDON - To most international observers, the trial of 13 Iranian Jews on charges of spying for Israel has been more of an indictment of Iran's justice system than of the accused.

With a verdict expected within two weeks, few if any lawyers, human rights activists or Western government analysts following the case have been convinced either by televised confessions broadcast during the closed-door trial, or by the judiciary's selective leaking of other evidence.

Most international attention has focused on what are seen as flaws in Iranian justice rather than the question of the guilt or innocence of the accused.

Concerns raised by Western officials and watchdogs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are:

• the suspects were held in isolation without access to either lawyers or relatives for more than a year;
• all those who "confessed" did so under unknown circumstances before they had access to lawyers or relatives;
• the trial has been held in secret despite pledges which some European governments and South Africa say they received that it would be open;
• in the Iranian legal system, the prosecutor is also the sole judge;
• creating what many observers see as a conflict of interest that is a fundamental flaw;
• state television broadcast during the trial "confessions" by several of the accused made in the absence of their lawyers. It has not broadcast any of the defense case;
• while reporters, diplomats and human rights observers have been barred from the courtroom, the prosecution has given selective briefings and interviews to set out the accusations against the accused.

Given evidence of widespread torture documented by U.N. human rights investigator Maurice Copithorne, such admissions are unlikely to be regarded as credible outside Iran.
 

Sanctioned Violence, a Pillar of Factional Infighting, The Guardian (of London), May 31

The would-be assassin was a member of the presidential bodyguard and of the elite Revolutionary Guard who tried to convince senior clerics to issue an edict allowing him to kill Mohammad Khatami.

The plot was foiled by the son of an ayatollah, who called the authorities.

Residents of Shahr-e Rey say it is well known that murder plots are concocted in the town's main religious center, where hundreds of members of the Islamic militia and Revolutionary Guard gather each week to hear hardline clerics preach.

Rogue agents in the intelligence ministry who confessed to murdering secular intellectuals in the late 90s are also believed to have sought fatwas from hardline clerics.

Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, who became known as Iran's hanging judge after the Islamic revolution, said last year that plots to kill perceived enemies were hatched in the Shi'ite city of Qom at the Haqqani school, once the breeding ground of liberal-minded clerics, now a haven for hardliners studying to be theologians.

Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, the leading ideologue of the right, routinely says that violence to uphold religious principles is legitimate.

According to sources close to the president and clerics in Qom, the would-be presidential assassin first contacted Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamadani, who referred him to another cleric he said had higher standing.

When he met the second cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Fazel-Lankaani, the cleric's son called the authorities.

When President Khatami took power in May 1997 he brought his personal bodyguards from his native province, Yazd, and it is they who are directly in charge of his safety. His would-be assassin, presumed to be in jail, belonged to his second line of defense.
 

Month Of May, Month Of Doom And Gloom For Khatami's Faction, BBC Monitoring Service, May 31

The month of May marked a low-key celebration of the third anniversary of Mohammad Khatami's presidency. Other events included several unauthorized student rallies supporting Khatami and denouncing Rafsanjani; a witch-hunt mounted against the reformists, particularly their doyen, culture minister Ata'ollah Mohajerani; a series of disputes with neighboring countries, interspersed with military exercises; and several trials, including the high-profile case of 13 Jews on espionage charges.

All in all the euphoric mood of the reformists' February election victory had given way to a climate of doom and gloom, with hopes pinned on the new parliament. 

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