Iran pardons 130 post-election detainees

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's top leader has granted amnesty to 130 prisoners related to the 2009 post-election turmoil, a state-run newspaper reported Thursday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered immediate releases for some of the 130 and reduced prison terms for the rest on the occasion of the upcoming holiday ending the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the IRAN daily quoted Tehran's chief prosecutor as saying

Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, the prosecutor, called the prisoners "security convicts", a term used for those detained in the wave of unrest that followed the controversial re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran arrested hundreds of political figures and activists in the turmoil and many were sentenced to prison.

Dowlatabadi did not identify any of the prisoners or say how many of the 130 were granted release. But the opposition Kaleme website said 60 would get immediate release, including Hamza Karami, a political adviser to influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Ghasem Shole Sadi a former lawmaker and a critic of Khamenei.