Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of Iran's Judiciary Committee for Human Rights, says the legal files of MirHosein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the leaders of the 2009 election protests, are being processed.
ISNA reports that Larijani claimed the process has been prolonged because of “their good record in the Islamic Republic.”
MirHosein Mousavi was Iranian prime minister throughout the Iran-Iraq War and Mehdi Karroubi has served as the head of Parliament. Both were candidates in the 2009 presidential election and they challenged the outcome with allegations of vote fraud. Both have been under house arrest since February 2011 without any official legal proceedings.
Last November, the spokesman for the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said Mousavi and Karroubi are criminals and there has been no change in their “punishments.”
The Rohani administration, which took power this summer, was expected to secure the opposition leaders’ release; however, the hardline faction of the establishment has renewed accusations that they were “leaders of sedition”, which is how they refer to the 2009 election protests against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory.
