Iran court sentences 100 rioters

A policeman was killed and many other people injured

By Jim Muir in Tehran

A court in Iran has sentenced 100 people put on trial following last year's riots in the provincial city of Khorramabad.

Some have been given prison sentences ranging from a few months to five years, others have been fined.

The riots were sparked when opponents of reform took to the streets to stop a national students conference being held last August.

Students demonstrated after the annual meeting was disrupted

Several days of violence followed during which a policeman was killed. Many other people were injured.

The violence also left an aftermath of bitter recrimination between the reformist and conservative political factions.

Hardliners

Three separate official inquiries blamed different quarters for the disturbances.

They were triggered when hardline right-wing militants disrupted an attempt by two liberal figures to address the annual student gathering

About 150 people were later arrested and put on trial. Reports say 50 of those are still being investigated by the judiciary.

It is not clear whether all those convicted are from the student side or whether some are from among the hardliners who attacked and besieged the airport when the two would-be speakers arrived.

The deputy interior minister, Mustafa Tajzadeh, who was in Khorramabad at the time, described the hardliners as fascists and demanded their prosecution.

But he, himself, has been put on trial over the affair.