18 Jan 2010 TEHRAN (Reuters) – The prosecutor of a northwestern Iranian city has been assassinated, ISNA news agency reported on Monday. ISNA did not give any further details but quoted a provincial judiciary official as saying “investigations were underway to identify those behind the killing” of Khoy’s prosecutor. ISNA’s report came six days after a remote-controlled bomb killed a university scientist in Tehran. Such incidents are relatively rare in Iran, which borders volatile Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. On Tuesday, Iranian officials blamed the United States and Israel for a bombing that killed Tehran University professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi in the capital. The United States dismissed the allegation of U.S. involvement as absurd. Iran’s Interior Ministry Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said Iran would take revenge from its arch-foes Israel and the United States for the killing of the scientist. State media described Ali-Mohammadi as a “committed and revolutionary” professor, suggesting he backed the government. But opposition websites said he was a supporter of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in last June’s disputed election, which plunged Iran into turmoil. (Editing by Dominic Evans) Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60H4DN20100118
