With a rising number of accusations against the opposition leaders being spread in the media, MirHosein Mousavi has responded, calling those attacks “slander and insults”.

The Kaleme website reports that he has repeatedly demanded the right to be put on trial where he could “tell the truth” but the authorities have refused.

“I and (Zahra) Rahnavard have on several occasions since our house arrest expressed our readiness through the guards and officials to appear in an official and open court,” he said.

Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard have been under house arrest since February 2011 for questioning the legitimacy of the 2009 presidential election and triggering widespread street protests across the country.

Mousavi and his fellow candidate in 2009, Mehdi Karroubi, who is also under house arrest, have been labeled as sedition leaders by the establishment, even though no official charges have been laid against them.

Mousavi has been quoted as saying that those who “steal from the poor and have created such vast corruption schemes are the seditious ones.”

In recent years, several corruption schemes involving government figures have been exposed, many of them linked to the administration of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose re-election victory was challenged by Mousavi and Karroubi with allegations of vote fraud.

Radio Zamaneh