Claims and counter-claims surround the murder of Iranian nuclear scientist and professor Massoud Ali Mohammadi, who was the victim of a booby-trapped motorcycle explosion in Tehran Tuesday.
A video shows the scene of the blast minutes after the explosion.
It is not known if Mohammadi was a part of the Iranian team developing nuclear power. Tehran University academics said he was not connected with the program, but university academics often serve as a front for Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
He was known to be an active supporter of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, but his name has appeared on a list of academics opposing the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His victory in last June’s balloting sparked charges that the vote was rigged, and hundreds of demonstrators have “disappeared” during protests or have been killed by the regime’s military and police forces.
Iran’s speaker of the parliament Ali Larijani, who was the Islamic Republic’s former chief nuclear negotiator, claimed that “we had received clear information a few days before [the assassination] that the [intelligence] service of the Zionist regime, with the cooperation of the CIA, were seeking to carry out a terrorist act in Tehran.
"They might have thought that, in the face of certain internal disputes, there was an opportunity to take this action and that they could cause friction among academics and harm the country's nuclear research work."
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mihman-Parast told the official government news agency, “Preliminary investigations indicated traces of the triangle of U.S.-Israel and their lackeys in the assassination of the professor. Such inhuman actions will, instead, help mobilize the young and talented Iranians to speed up progress of their own country.”
An opposition group charged the regime with “plotting a hoax” by arranging a post on the group’s site that it was responsible for the bomb-murder, a rare occurrence in Tehran.
"The idea that charged the United States with having anything to do with a murder in Tehran is absurd,” said Gordon Duguld, deputy spokesman of the U.S. State Department, The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) stated, "Any suggestion that the CIA played a role here is flat wrong."
The American Congress for the past 20 years has worked for providing money to be used to overthrow the Islamic Republic government.
Counter-accusations also continue to fly after the shooting death last month of the nephew of Mir Hossein Moussavi, leader of the movement against the regime. The government claimed he was shot in the chest while getting into a vehicle, but opposition groups charged that security forces killed him during a demonstration.