TEHRAN — A top Iranian counterintelligence official said two renowned AIDS physicians with ties to the United States are among a group of people on trial for allegedly participating in an American- backed underground espionage cell, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Monday.
The official, who was unnamed, said activist brothers Arash and Kamyar Alaei are accused of participating in what Iranian authorities say was a $32 million plot to help organize “soft subversion” of the Islamic Republic. Iran frequently accuses the U.S. of using nonprofit organizations and activists with ties to the West as tools to foment regime change.
The official, with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, mentioned “initiating social crisis,” “inciting street protests” and “stirring ethnic feuds and unrests” as objectives of the alleged plot.
