Iran reformer in coma after shooting
By Jonathan Lyons
TEHRAN: Saeed Hajjarian, one of the leading architects of Iran's reform
movement, was shot and seriously wounded on Sunday by unknown attackers who
fled on a high-powered motorcycle, witnesses said.
They said Hajjarian, a former deputy intelligence minister and a close aide
to President Mohammad Khatami, had been hit in the face and possibly in the
shoulder from a distance of less than three yards.
"The gunman had aimed his gun at Hajjarian's temple but because his hand was
shaking the (first) bullet struck him in the face," Mahmoud
Alizadeh-Tabatabaei, a colleague of Hajjarian's on the Tehran city council,
told the state news agency IRNA.
IRNA said Hajjarian, also a pro-reform newspaper editor, was in intensive
care at the nearby Sina hospital suffering from a swelling of the brain and
respiratory problems.
President Condemns Shooting
President Khatami condemned the shooting and ordered the authorities to
track down the gunmen. A presidential adviser said Iran's security forces
had been put on full alert in Tehran.
"Hajjarian is still in a coma. It is too early to say anything about his
condition," Mohammad Reza Zafarqandi, head of the emergency team, told IRNA.
"One bullet entered through his left cheek and remains lodged at the back of
his neck," he said, adding it was too early to consider surgery to remove
the bullet. It was not clear whether he had been hit a second time.
However, a colleague of Hajjarian told Reuters that doctors had later
detected some improvement, with the patient's vital signs recovering
somewhat after the initial trauma.
Iran's top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, was to meet
within hours to discuss the incident. The Council set up a special
operations center to monitor events.
President Khatami, on a visit to his native Yazd province, condemned the
attack, saying "assassination is the ugliest act." It was not clear whether
the president, who chairs the security council, would cut short his trip to
attend the meeting.
Attack Followed Written Threats
The attack followed what associates said were a number of written threats in
recent weeks on Hajjarian's life by hard-line extremists, some of whom have
been linked to the serial murders of dissident intellectuals.
"He was threatened by many people, including those who killed the
intellectuals," said one colleague.
Reformers rallied around the stricken Hajjarian, with a delegation of
newly-elected members of parliament and President Khatami's chief of staff
rushing to his bedside.
"You cannot stop reforms through assassination," Mohammad Hossein Daroudian,
a member of the city council, told IRNA.
But other pro-reform commentators were less sanguine.
"I think this marks an unhappy start for the new phase of political life in
Iran. I am worried for the future," economist and pro-reform editor Saeed
Leylaz told Reuters.
Witnesses told Reuters the two assailants had been cruising the nearby
streets on a 1000-cc motorcycle. This size of machine, once popular as
getaway vehicles in political killings, is outlawed in Iran except for use
by police and security personnel.
That has fed fears among reformers that the attempt on Hajjarian could be
linked to Iran's intense factional struggle, pitting moderates against the
conservative establishment.
Mehdi Qasemi, a university student who was outside the city council building
at the time, told Reuters the gunman, who was on the back of the motorbike,
had fired twice from no more than three yards away.
Other witnesses said the gunman, wearing a helmet, had approached Hajjarian
and shot him with a Colt revolver.
IRNA said the attack had taken place at 8.35 a.m. in central Tehran. It said
witnesses had provided the police with descriptions of the attackers and
their motorcycle.
People at the scene of the shooting said the city council's armed police
detachment apparently made no attempt to chase down the gunmen, another
factor that is sure to feed reformers' suspicions surrounding the incident.
Victim Was Mastermind Of Reformist Poll Win
Hajjarian was one of the masterminds of the reformists' big victory in last
month's parliamentary polls, and there was widespread speculation that he
would soon step down as editor of the Sobh-e Emrouz daily to begin full-time
political work.
His newspaper has been in the forefront of the pro-reform movement,
aggressively exposing what it says is a hardline circle within the
Intelligence Ministry involved in the murders of dissidents dating back many
years.
After leaving the Intelligence Ministry, Hajjarian joined other leftist
theoreticians in political exile at think-tanks and universities before
returning to politics in the wake of Khatami's 1997 election victory.
(Reuters)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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