A third hearing for 25 more political dissidents started Sunday morning in Tehran's revolutionary court with the presence of their lawyers, official news agency IRNA reported, according to dpa. There were no prominent dissidents among the 25 but rather demonstrators and election campaign volunteers of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi. The court charged the defendants with having damaged public properties and attending illegal political gatherings. The lawyers said that their clients had been jailed for almost two months and as they had no previous criminal records, they should be pardoned and released. The court will issue the final verdicts in due time, state media reported. Moussavi on Saturday once again decried the trials as indecent and said charges raised against the protestors were "hallucinations" by the court. A group of the detainees, including former reformist officials, are charged with espionage and plans to topple the Islamic system through a velvet revolution. According to official statistics, some 110 dissidents are remain jailed - while the opposition claims double that - following protests against alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election. More than 4,000 protestors were arrested during the street demonstrations.
