Iranian media report that the country’s supreme court has disbarred a former chief prosecutor of Tehran over his role in the death of at least three jailed antigovernment protesters in 2009.

Saeed Mortazavi, an ally of former hard-line conservative President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, was also suspended from public office for five years, reports said on November 16.

A preliminary report in 2010 found Mortazavi was responsible in the torturing to death of at least three protesters detained during mass antigovernment rallies in the wake of Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.

Mortazavi has rejected the allegations.

He was briefly arrested in February 2013 over the prison deaths.

He was suspended after the parliament’s 2010 probe and his case remained open.

During his six years as Tehran’s prosecutor and before that as a judge, Mortazavi was linked to the closure of dozens of reformist publications and the jailing of dozens of journalists.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP
RFE/RL