IRAN - Feb. 8 - Montazeri Linked To Jailed Activists.

In comments published by the traditionalist daily Kayhan, the head of the Special Theologians Court Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei says the household of dissident Ayatullah Hossein Ali Montazeri rendered "huge financial assistance" to seven people and the pro-Khatami Office to Foster Unity (the main reformist student group). He says the ayatullah's son, Saeed Montazeri, arrested several months ago, had written and distributed anti-revolutionary material. (Ayat. Montazeri, regarded as one of Iran's leading theologians, was put under house arrest in Qom in 1997 for challenging the credentials of Ayatullah Ali Khamen'i, the supreme leader closely associated with the conservatives. Ayat. Montazeri recently infuriated the establishment by publishing his memoirs on the internet. Analysts say the judge's allegations of anti-revolutionary activities, co-ordinated by the ayatullah's household and carried out by the new generation of "religious-nationalist" dissidents, could be the prelude to a more serious attempt to undermine Khatami before the June 8 presidential elections). Mohseni-Ejei says those recently arrested confessed to taking money to "destroy" ex-president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (who headed the conservatives list of candidates in parliamentary elections they lost conclusively a year ago). Speaking at the main theology college in the holy city of Qom, the judge names two jailed journalists, Akbar Ganji and Emadeddin Baqi, who probed political murders carried out in the 1990s while Rafsanjani was in office. (During his recent trial, Ganji implicated former ministers and judges, including Mohseni-Ejei, in the killings. They rejected the allegations). The judge accuses Ali Afshari, a student leader, and Ezatollah Sahabi, a veteran nationalist politician, of taking money. (Both disappeared inside Iran's prison system nearly two months ago).