TEHRAN (AFP) — An Iranian ex-nuclear negotiator has been cleared of espionage, the judiciary announced on Tuesday, contradicting charges from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the official was a spy.
The investigating magistrate found that accusations against Hossein Moussavian of espionage and holding classified documents were not valid, judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said.
However the judge found there was a case over less serious allegations of making "propaganda against the system", he added.
"He was facing accusations of espionage, keeping classified documents and propaganda against the system. He was cleared of the first two and guilty of the third."
Moussavian was the spokesman of the moderate nuclear negotiating team that served under president Mohammad Khatami and was replaced when hardliner Ahmadinejad became president in 2005.
The former negotiator -- who was detained briefly in May but released on bail -- is a close ally of Ahmadinejad's great political rival, the pragmatic former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Ahmadinejad and other cabinet members publicly accused Moussavian of being a criminal, amid growing tensions between political factions ahead of March 14 parliamentary elections.
The announcement sets up a conflict between the government and the judiciary, which had reacted with barely disguised fury when the president made the accusations against Moussavian.
Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie had even said the allegations were "proven" and that Moussavian had passed classified information to the British embassy in Tehran.
Jamshidi said the judge's verdict had been passed on to prosecutors. The case would still go to trial if prosecutors protested the decision, where the final verdict would be made by a trial judge, he added.
Earlier a source in the judiciary told AFP: "In the investigation, it was concluded that he committed no crime and a decision was taken not to continue the investigation."
But government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham again made no secret of the government's desire to see Moussavian in the dock.
"Everything that has been said, notably by the intelligence minister, is accusations. Only a judge can condemn him in a public trial," Elham, who also holds the cabinet post of justice minister, told reporters.
"We hope that with a public trial the affair will be cleared up."
After his release on bail, Moussavian's case disappeared from view for several months until Ahmadinejad on November 12 accused critics of "pressuring the judge to acquit a spy" in a security case.
Ahmadinejad did not mention Moussavian by name, but observers saw the remarks as an unmistakable reference to the former nuclear official.
After Ahmadinejad's remarks, Moussavian made a very public appearance sitting side-by-side with Rafsanjani as the cleric attended a conference.
Moussavian, also a former ambassador to Germany, is now the deputy head of a research institute led by Hassan Rowhani, who was Iran's top nuclear negotiator at the time and has since been bitterly critical of Ahmadinejad.
"Calling people guilty before the court's decision is a wrongdoing in itself," Rowhani said on Wednesday, in an angry reference to the Moussavian case.
The research institute is run by the Expediency Council, Iran's top political arbitration body headed by Rafsanjani, who was soundly defeated by Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election.
The judiciary is led by Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a cleric renowned for his knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence who has sought to bring greater transparency to the judiciary in his time in office.
Shahroudi has also strongly cricitised Ahmadinejed's style of governance and wholesale sacking of officials who do not share his hardline views.
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