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    News & Views

    Iranians accuse exiles in slaying

    By AFSHIN VALINEJAD

    TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Hard-line Iranians have accused exiles and foreign spies of killing an Iranian writer who was found dead after he disappeared last week.

    Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh, 45, is the fifth critic of the conservative clerical regime to die recently under mysterious circumstances. Pouyandeh was apparently strangled, his 17-year-old daughter, Nazanin, said Sunday.

    ``Those masterminding such conspiracies are trying to suggest that insecurity is prevailing in Iran,'' 140 of Iran's 270 Parliament members said in a letter to President Mohammad Khatami.

    The lawmakers accused the Iraq-based opposition Mujahedeen Khalq and unspecified foreign intelligence services of carrying out the killings. Iran's judiciary, controlled by hard-liners, blamed the deaths on unidentified foreigners.

    Pouyandeh, a writer and translator, had been missing since Wednesday. His body was found the next day, and his family identified it on Saturday after being notified by the police, his daughter said. No personal belongings were missing, she said.

    ``I have lost all hope,'' she told The Associated Press. ``I don't know who will die next, but I hope that my father was the last victim of these slayings.''

    Iran's deputy interior minister, Mostafa Tajzadeh, said the killings were aimed at tarnishing Khatami's moderate image. Khatami is locked in a power struggle with conservative clergymen opposed to his political and social reforms.

    Khatami's efforts at reform have angered hard-liners, who control nearly all key institutions, including the security forces and the intelligence network. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the last word on all matters.

    The daily Akhbar newspaper quoted Tajzadeh as saying a number of arrests had been made, but he did not elaborate.

    Ali Abbasi-Fard, the spokesman of Iran's judiciary, said Sunday it appeared that a ``sinister and organized movement is using agents affiliated to foreign elements to undermine social stability and to create fear throughout the society.''

    The National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is closely linked to the Mujahedeen Khalq, condemned Pouyandeh's death.

    ``The recent events once again prove that Khatami's claims about 'the rule of law' and 'civil society' are only a deception,'' the council said in Washington. In the past three weeks, four other government critics, including two writers, have been found dead.

    Over the past year, the hard-liners have resorted to increasing violence to deal with pro-Khatami opponents. Nobody has been charged in any of the attacks.

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