Iran accuses two renowned Aids doctors of ties to US spy cell

Tehran: A top Iranian counterintelligence official said two renowned Aids physicians with ties to the US are among a group of people on trial for allegedly participating in an American-backed underground espionage cell, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Monday.

The official, who was unnamed, said activist brothers Arash and Kamyar Alaei are accused of participating in what Iranian authorities say was a $32-million (Dh117.5 million) plot to help organise 'soft subversion' of the Islamic Republic. Iran frequently accuses the US of using non-profit organisations and activists with ties to the West as tools to foment regime change.

The official, with Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, mentioned 'initiating social crisis,' 'inciting street protests' and 'stirring ethnic feuds and unrests' as objectives of the alleged plot.

"The US, using its agents in United Arab Emirates, Baku (Azerbaijan), Turkey, Kuwait and other countries, seeks to implement a velvet revolution and tries to infiltrate the Iranian elites and experts and other social layers," the semiofficial Fars News Agency quoted the intelligence official as saying.

"Those arrested in connection with this case were the main agents and network leaders who have deliberately and intentionally cooperated with US intelligence agents and were doing whatever they wanted," he was quoted as saying.

The Alaeis' lawyer said he expected a verdict in the next few days and a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, which he said he would appeal.

Judiciary branch spokesman Ali-Reza Jamshidi said last week that the two brothers and two other suspects were charged with 'communicating with an enemy government' and seeking to undermine the Islamic Republic and had a one-day trial late last month.

In an announcement last year, the US State Department noted that the Alaei brothers participated in a November 2006 US sponsored educational exchange 'which focused on public health' and 'led to collaboration between American and Iranian medical professionals' on HIV and Aids treatment and prevention. During the trial, the judge referred to an article in the legal code which states that any Iranian with relations to 'hostile states' may be sentenced to 10 years in prison. Jamshidi said last week that the four suspects would make a court appearance 'in the near future.'

Human-rights organisations say the trial at the politically charged Revolutionary Court was filled with irregularities, including secret evidence that the doctors' attorneys had no chance to refute. The pair's lawyer, Masoud Shafii, said they pleaded not guilty at the trial, which lasted four hours. "I defended my clients and tried to prove that they were not spies," he said.

The Alaei brothers gained fame in public health circles for raising awareness about acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Iran. Kamyar Alaei studied at Harvard's School of Public Health. Arash Alaei helped launch a series of clinics in Iran to treat Aids, a problem in Iran because of an epidemic of intravenous use of cheap Afghan heroin.

The brothers were arrested in June and are believed to be in a ward for political prisoners inside Tehran's Evin Prison. Their cause has been taken up by several international advocacy groups, including the Cambridge, Massachusetts based Physicians for Human Rights.

"To all appearances, the arrest and now the trial of these two prominent and widely travelled Aids doctors seem to be an effort to shut the door on medical and public health collaboration on global health crises," Frank Donaghue, head of the organisation, said in a statement to media.

Thousands have contacted Iran's mission to the United Nations over the past week, asking for the brothers' release. Both the US and the European Union have condemned the detention.

"In the past, Iran has used similar charges to falsely accuse and detain civil society activists and Iranians working to enhance understanding between our two countries," said the US State Department said in a statement released last week.

"We urge the government of Iran to adhere to international norms by ending its policy of arbitrarily detaining its citizens or using charges of violating national security as a pretext for targeting any Iranian citizen."