TEHRAN, Aug 26 (Reuters) – A former head of Tehran’s largest cemetery said on Wednesday no mass burial had ever taken place there, after an MP said a committee was looking into rumours that protesters killed during demonstrations had been buried at the site.
“Never has a mass burial … happened in Behesht-e Zahra,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Mahmoud Rezaian as saying. He said he had recently retired as head of the cemetery but that he remains a managing board member, IRNA reported.
On Tuesday, member of parliament Hamidreza Katouzian said a parliamentary committee set up by the assembly to examine events after the disputed June presidential election was investigating the “rumour” about Behesht-e Zahra south of Tehran.
The reformist website Norooz said last week that “tens” of people were buried in unnamed graves in the cemetery on July 12 and 15 — about a month after the election, which sparked widespread street protests. Norooz did not identify those who were buried or say how they died.
