Iran's deputy interior minister was in court Tuesday for questioning over the deadly unrest that marred a pro-reform student conference in August, the state IRNA news agency said.
Mostafa Tajzadeh, a regular target of conservative anger, refused to speak to reporters after the hearing but has been accused in the press of helping instigate the disturbances in the western city of Khoramabad.
One policeman was killed and dozens of people wounded in several days of riots after a mob stormed Khoramabad airport to block two leading critics of the clerical regime from addressing the student conference.
Students said they were brutally beaten by members of the volunteer Basiji Islamic militia as well as the nation's elite Revolutionary Guards during the unrest, though both groups denied the charges.
The National Security Council, headed by Tajzadeh's superior, Interior Minister Abdol-Vahed Mussavi-Lari, concluded after weeks of investigation that the Guards and militia, which are under the direct control of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were largely to blame for the troubles.
Tajzadeh was in Khoramabad at the time.
The pro-reform Office to Consolidate Unity was forced to cut short its annual conference, which came just head of the new school year, and announced afterward that it would follow a policy of "active calm" in the face of the attacks.
It was the worst unrest in Iran since the previous summer, when six days of riots erupted after vigilantes and security forces attacked students at Tehran university protesting the forced closure of a pro-reform newspaper -- TEHRAN (AFP)
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