0653 GMT: After three days of intense fighting, there was some easing of the political conflict on Wednesday. President Ahmadinejad's advisor Saeed Mortazavi, arrested suddenly on Monday night, was released from Evin Prison.
The supposed cause of Mortazavi's detention --- rather than the allegations that he was involved in the abuse and killing of post-election protesters in summer 2009 at the Kahrizak detention centre --- was the specific claim that he had met with Fazel Larijani, the brother of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani and head of judiciary Sadegh Larijani, to discuss a political favour. The Tehran Prosector's office said that it had started an investigation of both Mortazavi and Fazel Larijani.
Despite these developments, which followed a meeting between Sadegh Larijani and the Supreme Leader on Tuesday night, the political tension continued to simmer. Ali Larijani -- whose dramatic smack-down of Ahmadinejad, after the President used a speech in Parliament to put out his claim of the corruption of the Larijani family, escalated the conflict --- kept jabbing on Wednesday. He switched to the economic front, declaring that Parliament had not agreed to the second phase of Ahmadinejad's subsidy cuts programme, his major initiative in the last months of his Presidency.
And the Battle of the Videos continued, with each side putting out footage which they claimed showed the conniving and criminal actions of the other. Analyst Eskandar Sadeghi-Borujerdi offers a useful overview of the complex allegations.
Posted via email from lissping
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