Families of murdered Iranian nuclear scientists file lawsuit
Published August 15, 2012
(JTA) — The families of several dead Iranian nuclear scientists filed a lawsuit accusing Israel, the U.S. and Britain of being involved in their assassinations.
Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed since 2010, and Iran repeatedly has blamed Israel’s Mossad intelligency agency as well as the CIA and Britain’s MI6 for the assassinations, with support from some of Iran’s neighbors. The U.S. and Britain have denied involvement in the slayings. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
“Through this complaint, we declare to the world that actions of arrogant governments, led by the U.S., Britain and the occupying Zionist regime, in assassinating nuclear scientists and elites is against human principles,” according to a statement read by Mansoureh Karami, the wife of slain Tehran University physics professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi, reported The Associated Press.
In May, Iran executed a 24-year-old man convicted of spying for Israel and assassinating an Iranian nuclear scientist. Majid Jamali Fashi had been sentenced to death in August 2010 for the murder of Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at Tehran University killed by a remote-controlled bomb in a January 2010 attack.
In April, more than 15 Iranian and foreign nationals reportedly were arrested for carrying out alleged terrorist missions for Israel in Iran, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran’s official news service. The group was accused of spying for Israel, the attempted assassination of an Iranian expert and sabotage.
The state-backed Fars news agency said the lawsuit stressed that the deaths of the scientists would not undermine Iran’s progress because Iranian youths will double their efforts to make more achievements in scientific and technological fields.
Western powers accuse Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons, while Iran says it is attempting to build reactors for peaceful purposes such as power and medical isotopes.
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