Tehran - A hardline ayatollah close to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Friday for the prosecution of moderate cleric Mehdi Karroubi for alleging that rapes were carried out in Iranian prisons.

Karroubi, who is also the leader of the opposition party Etemad Melli, claimed Tuesday that some young women and men detained after the June 12 presidential election have been brutally raped in jail.

"These baseless and outrageous claims have made the US and Israel hold celebrations," said Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, during a sermon in Friday's Islamic prayer ceremony in Tehran.

The Iranian judiciary and parliament have strongly rejected the charges and warned Karroubi not to make such claims without relevant documents to prove them.

Not intimidated by the warnings, Karroubi once again charged the government on his website Thursday with torturing those arrested for protesting alleged fraud in the presidential election. He said some of the detainees had died as a result of the torture they suffered in prison.

"The judiciary should adopt decisive and suitable measures against him for these baseless charges," said Khatami, deputy head of the Experts Assembly, an influential clerical body.

A special parliamentary committee, the country's police chief and the prosecutor general already admitted of some of the prisoners detained due to their protest against alleged vote rigging were physically abused.

Khatami also said the establishment would not tolerate the opposition comparing the Islamic republic with the monarchy era.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi had said on his website last month that the methods used against detainees were reminiscent of those used by the notorious secret service in the Shah era.

Several parliament deputies close to the president also called for prosecuting Karroubi, Moussavi and former president Mohammad Khatami for allegedly having been the architects of the protests.

Ayatollah Khatami also called on the judiciary to have mercy on those detainees "who have been deceived to join the protests" but not to compromise with those detainees who have links to foreign countries and made efforts to topple the system.

According to official statistics, there are 110 protestors still in jail. The opposition, however, says that the number is 220 and includes demonstrators, students, journalists and former reformist officials.

One of the detainees is Hossein Rassam, the chief analyst of the British embassy in Tehran, who is charged with spying for London. Rassam said in court that he was ordered to attend the protest demonstrations and write reports for the embassy.

The detained reformist officials, including former cabinet members and parliament deputies, are accused by the court of having planned to topple the system by mounting a "velvet revolution."

Moussavi has condemned the hearings as "show-trials" which would only discredit Iran's image in the world.

Meanwhile, the website of the Etemad Melli party reported Friday that the opposition wanted clarification on the death toll following the unrests.

While the Iranian opposition said 69 people were killed during recent post-election protests, the government insists that the number was not more then 23.

Morteza Alviri, the opposition's representative following up the case with a special committee in the parliament, said that with the cooperation of the Tehran cemetery Behesht'e Zahra, the death toll could be clarified.

Alviri said that the parliament could use its influence to push the Behesht'e Zahra officials to disclose the required information.(dpa)