Iran Tries Terrorists... right

Iran Has Tried Arrested Al Qaeda Members

Tehran Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's judiciary has tried a number of arrested al Qaeda members and verdicts have been issued, a senior judiciary official was quoted as saying on Monday.

Tehran Justice Department (news - web sites) head Abbasali Alizadeh told the semi-official Fars news agency Iran's "high-ranking officials are satisfied with the issued verdicts," but did not elaborate on what the verdicts had been.

News of the trials is likely to anger Washington, which has repeatedly called on Iran to hand over all al Qaeda suspects it is holding. Guilty verdicts sentencing them to long jail terms would make that an even more distant prospect.

Reuters could not immediately reach judiciary or government officials for comment.

Western intelligence and Saudi sources believe Iran may have captured al Qaeda's security chief and a son of the group's leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).

Iran has extradited scores of suspected al Qaeda militants who fled Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Pakistan in the last three years. But it has rebuffed U.S. calls to hand them all over and last year announced plans to put around a dozen on trial.

Mata Musing: Hummm.... tried, but the world is not to know of the verdicts. Why the secrecy?

Yet I continue to hold out hope for Iran based on the continued trend of the Irani youth, bent on changing their country to more western ways and freedoms. The unfolding of their future, as well as the UN/EU, int'l community's efforts to control their nuclear proliferation should be fascinating to watch.