TEHRAN — Saeed Hajjarian was a die- hard hero of Iran’s reform movement, campaigning to reduce the power of the Islamic clerics even after being shot in the head in an assassination attempt that left him partially paralyzed.
Tuesday, he was brought into a courtroom propped up by men who put him in the front row of defendants in Iran’s biggest political trial in decades, where he proceeded to renounce his entire career as a reformist.
His speech slurred and nearly unintelligible from the 2000 attack, Hajjarian had a statement read proclaiming that Iran’s supreme leader represents the rule of God on Earth and asking for forgiveness for his “incorrect” ideas.
The stunning confession was among the most dramatic in the trial of more than 100 reform leaders and protesters arrested in Iran’s post-election crackdown — testimony that the opposition says was coerced by threats and mistreatment during weeks of solitary confinement.
A top architect of the reform movement, Hajjarian, 55, was a senior aide to former reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Hajjarian was among the radical students who seized the U.S. Embassy during the height of the 1979 Islamic revolution and held American diplomats hostage for 444 days. He later helped build the Islamic republic’s Intelligence Ministry, rising to high rank in the ministry.
But in the 1990s, Hajjarian became disillusioned with the clerical leadership and began to speak out for freedom of expression and political reform.
During Tuesday’s session, the prosecutor called for Hajjarian’s party to be dissolved and urged “full punishment” against Hajjarian, though officials have not said what the maximum sentence would entail.
