Iranian AIDS experts among convicted plotters
Tehran - Two Iranian AIDS experts, Arash and Kamiar Alaei, are among those convicted of planning to overthrow the Islamic system in Iran with the help of US intelligence, a secret service official said Monday.
The unnamed official from the counter-espionage department confirmed earlier press reports that the two physicians were among the four convicted in a 32-million-dollar US plot aiming to provoke social and ethnic crises as well as protest demonstrations.
IRNA news agency reported that the four were sentenced to jail terms for "security crimes."
The Alaei brothers, in jail since last June, have reportedly played a large role in the creation of Iran's HIV/AIDS prison programme in Iran.
Three influential human rights groups in the US - Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
- had condemned the arrests and rejected the charges against the two scientists. (dpa)