The Daily Star, December 01, 2012
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| This YouTube grab shows Sattar Beheshti. |
TEHRAN:
Tehran's cyber police chief has been sacked for negligence in events leading to
the death in custody of an Iranian blogger, Iran's police said Saturday on its
website.
Colonel
Saeed Shokrian "was removed from his post due to negligence and lax
supervision over personnel under his command," police.ir reported, quoting
a decree by Iran's police chief, Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghadam.
His
dismissal came weeks after the fate of blogger Sattar Beheshti, reportedly
tortured to death after criticising Iran's regime in his posts, provoked an
international outcry.
Beheshti,
35, was found dead in his cell in a Tehran prison on November 3 after being
arrested on October 30, according to chief prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni
Ejeie.
His death
also provoked outrage inside the regime, in a rare case of Iran accepting international
criticism over a human rights complaint.
Judiciary
officials have promised a lawful probe into the case, leading to seven arrests
so far, according to Iranian media.
"The
judiciary will investigate the case within the framework of law, and will
confront those responsible for the incident," Mohammad Javad Larijani,
head of the judiciary's High Council of Human Rights, said in remarks reported
by media Saturday. He however called the death "suspicious".
Mehdi
Davatgari, a lawmaker overseeing a parliamentary inquiry into Beheshti's death,
had earlier called for the removal of Shokrian.
Preliminary
investigations by the coroner, the prosecutor and the parliamentary committee
suggest Beheshti's death was caused by mistreatment, either through beating or
psychological torture, at the hands of the cyber police.
Iran formed
the police unit in early 2011 to combat "cyber crimes," particularly
those committed on social networking sites which are popular among the
opposition and dissidents.
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