Iran’s Mehr news agency has revealed the names of five of the 26 U.S. officials to be blacklisted by the Islamic Republic.
They are: William Rogers, U.S. navy officer and captain of USS Vincennes; Jeffrey Harbeson, commandant of Joint Task Force Guantanamo that run the Guantanamo Bay detention camps; Paul Bremer, U.S. Administrator to Iraq since 2003; Richard Perle, an American political and defence advisor; and General Tommy Franks, a former Commander of U.S. Central Command who led the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and later the invasion of Iraq. They are all on the list prepared by Iran’s national security and foreign policy commission to be considered for blacklisting in view of their alleged human rights violations.
“A number of American officials have been directly involved in human rights violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Guantanamo detention centre and Abu Ghraib prison, and a number of others have been involved in the drug trade,” Iranian MP Kazem Jalali announced.
He cited “strong evidence regarding these crimes” and maintained that these officials must be prosecuted in international courts and punished.
“The freezing of assets and prosecution in Iranian and international courts are among the measures considered against these individuals,” Jalali added.
He also said this is only a preliminary list and others are being prepared.
The preparation of these lists is Iran’s reaction to the U.S. and EU sanctions imposed against dozens of Iranian officials in the past month.
The United States and the European Union have singled out several Iranian judiciary, security and military officials on their blacklists of human rights violators, freezing assets and restricting travel in their jurisdictions.
The EU expanded its sanctions against Iran by adding the names of 100 Iranian companies and institutions to its blacklist.
