0530 GMT: The head of Iran's security forces, Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam, has confirmed that the house arrests of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi in February 2011 were ordered by the Supreme Leader.
Mousavi and Karroubi, along with their wives Zahra Rahnavard and Fatemeh Karroubi were detained as major protests, the first in more than a year, took place in Tehran. Fatemeh Karroubi was "freed" later in the year as her husband was moved to another apartment, but the other three activists are still imprisoned in their residences.
Ahmadi Moghaddam, in an interview with Kayhan, said the Supreme Leader withheld approval for the arrests of Mousavi and Karroubi during the protests of hundreds of thousands of people after the disputed 2009 Presidential elections that following the controversial 2009 presidential election, even as the police were jailing dozens of other prominent politicians and activists.
During the Ashura demonstrations of December 2009, when protesters challenged security forces on the streets, Ahmadi Moghaddam presented Ayatollah Khamenei with another list of figures to be arrested. The Supreme Leader pointed to the names of Mousavi and Karroubi and said, "I will take care of these myself."
The police chief effectively admitted that Mousavi and Karroubi will never be brought to court on formal charges. He said the judiciary and the security forces had prepared cases, but these were abandoned in favour of the house arrests.
Posted via email from lissping
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