Eye on Iran: Iranian-American Hanged in Iran

Join UANI           Top Stories IHR: "An Iranian-American man has reportedly been hanged in Iran. According to confirmed sources, Iranian authorities carried out the death sentence for Hamid Samiee and another prisoner at Karaj's Rajai Shahr Prison on Wednesday November 4. Samiee, reportedly accused of committing an act of murder in California, was arrested by Iranian authorities upon his return to Iran. He was sentenced to death by Branch 71 of Tehran's Criminal Court for the murder of an Iranian man identified as Behrouz Janmohammadi. Confirmed sources say Samiee was arrested in 2008 after the murder victim's family had reported him to Iranian authorities. An individual close to Samiee who asked to be anonymous tells Iran Human Rights: 'Hamid and Behrouz were friends in California until they were involved in an altercation that resulted in Behrouz drawing a knife on Hamid; and Hamid exercised self defense, which resulted in Behrouz's death. Following the incident, Hamid managed to make his way back to Iran where he was arrested by authorities just a few months after his arrival. Hamid endured extreme torture and was forced to confess against himself; and a lot of his confessions were false. Iranian authorities extracted forced confessions from Hamid even before the murder scene was reconstructed and the murder weapon discovered. Authorities did not even consider Hamid's testimony that he acted in self defense; all they cared about was that Hamid confessed the way they instructed him to.'" http://t.uani.com/1NFMtJy JPost: "Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the recent coordinated Paris attacks that left at least 130 people dead 'blind terrorism.' Khamenei's comments, released in a statement to 'the youth in the Western countries,' were published Sunday by the Iranian IRNA news agency, the government's official news agency... Khamenei said the pain of any human being is concerning whether  it occurs 'in France or in Palestine or Iraq or Lebanon or Syria.' Khamenei called terrorism 'our common worry' and added 'the Islamic world has been the victim of terror and brutality to a larger extent territorially, to greater amount quantitatively and for a longer period in terms of time.' He said America had a role in 'creating, nurturing and arming al-Qaida, the Taliban and their inauspicious successors,' such as the Islamic State. He singled out '[t]he oppressed people of Palestine,' who he said: 'have experienced the worst kind of terrorism for the last sixty years. If the people of Europe have now taken refuge in their homes for a few days and refrain from being present in busy places- it is decades that a Palestinian family is not secure even in its own home from the Zionist regime's death and destruction machinery. What kind of atrocious violence today is comparable to that of the settlement constructions of the Zionists regime?'" http://t.uani.com/1MUcPEj Tehran Times: "Iran and Italy have agreed to open a $5-billion credit line, in a bid to pave the way for optimal banking and economic ties between the two countries once sanctions against the Islamic Republic are lifted. The credit line is projected to take effect one day after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA), a document drafted and signed by Iran and world major powers as a solution to Iran's nuclear program. The decision was announced in a meeting in Tehran between Central Bank of Iran Governor Valiollah Seif and an Italian trade delegation, headed by Deputy Economic Development Minister Carlo Calenda, the Tasnim news agency reported on Monday. In the meeting, Calenda emphasized that the two sides should work in earnest to clear away present banking obstacles so as to ratchet up bilateral trade to the level it was prior to the imposition of sanctions against Iran. Part of the Italian delegation was the flagship export credit agency Servizi Assicurativi del Commercio Estero (SACE). According to Giovani Castellaneta, the managing director of SACE, the company is ready to provide up to €5 billion insurance coverage to mining projects in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1XE8XKm Sanctions Relief Press TV (Iran): "An Iranian petrochemical industry official says the country will be hosting an international event on investment in its petrochemical sector in the middle of December. 'The conference will be held to introduce opportunities for investment in Iran's petrochemical industry and to discuss available grounds for the attraction of foreign direct investment after sanctions imposed on Iran are removed,' Mohammad Hassan Peivandi, deputy managing director of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), said in an interview with IRNA. According to the official, the conference, scheduled to be held on December 13 and 14, will be attended by representative of 137 creditable international companies. The conference comes following a similar international event held in Tehran last week to introduce the new format of Iran's petroleum contracts and to lay out 50 oil and gas projects for development through foreign investment. The conference, dubbed 'Tehran Summit: Iran Oil and Gas Projects and Domestic Capacities,' was also attended by 137 companies and oil majors, including Repsol, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Technip, Schlumberger, Eni, Enel, Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom, Inpex, Statoil and Daewoo." http://t.uani.com/1TrjCYo Shana (Iran): "The representative of Kvaerner ASA, Norwegian engineering and construction services company, said the wide welcome of the Tehran IPC Conference heralds a bright future for Iran's petroleum industry. Speaking with Shana on the sidelines of the two-day conference which was mounted by Iranian Ministry of Petroleum to introduce the terms of its new oil and gas contracts, Bjørn Arne Lundblad, the vice president of strategic business development of Kvaerner ASA, said the presence of more than 1,500 executives and representatives of international firms at the conference is an indication of their interest in Iran's oil and gas projects. 'The world's oil and gas industry is now seeking new grounds for investment and Iran is a very suitable option for them,' he said. Lundblad said many projects have been put on table at the conference before the potential investors which require a long time for their assessment and appraisal." http://t.uani.com/1TihoK5 Press TV (Iran): "Iran and Russia have signed an agreement worth 1.2 billion euros to electrify a train line, linking north-central Iran to the northeastern border with Turkmenistan, an official says.  The agreement signed between Russian Railways and the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (RAI) envisages constructing power stations and overhead power lines along the Garmsar-Sari-Gorgan-Inche Burun route in Iran. 'The implementation of the contract will improve the capacity of passenger trains and raise transit to 8 million tons,' said RAI Managing Director Mohsen Poursaeed-Aqaei who signed the document... The project will be financed by the Russian government and will be implemented in 36 months, which includes manufacturing all electric locomotives inside Iran, electrifying 495 kilometers of railway and building 32 stations and 95 tunnels." http://t.uani.com/1QRGVfh Reuters: "Asian imports of Iranian oil fell to the lowest level in two years in October, as Iran's biggest crude buyers held off from increasing purchases following a landmark agreement on Tehran's disputed nuclear programme in July. Imports by Iran's four biggest buyers - China, India, Japan and South Korea - came to 803,674 barrels per day (bpd) last month, the lowest since October 2013, and down 8.5% from a year ago, government and tanker-tracking data show. Total imports by the top four Asian buyers have slumped this year since reaching a peak of 1.205 million bpd in May and had held steady at about 1.02 million bpd since July, the data showed." http://t.uani.com/1lVswlE Domestic Politics FT: "Iran's capital Tehran has seen an unprecedented security tightening amid concerns that a country that has taken an active role in the fight against Isis could become a target for the terrorist group. Police have flooded the city in recent days, with armed officers wearing bulletproof vests stationed on main streets and standing guard outside major underground stations. Hossein Sajedinia, Tehran's police commander, acknowledged this weekend that police numbers had been beefed up to ward off 'any possible threat' and to make the citizens 'feel secure'. 'These anti-terrorist measures will continue as long as needed,' he said, adding this did not mean an attack was imminent. 'Tehran enjoys complete security,' Mr Sajedinia added." http://t.uani.com/1HDfuDd Foreign Affairs Reuters: "Iraq's interior ministry blamed Iranian authorities on Monday for allowing tens of thousands of Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims to storm a border crossing and enter the country without visas, in a rare public confrontation between the two neighbors. The ministry said in a statement that the pilgrims, traveling on foot toward the Shi'ite shrine city of Karbala to take part in the annual Arbaeen religious ritual, overwhelmed security forces on Sunday, pulling down fences and injuring border guards. It accused them of deliberately rushing the border crossing in order to pressure security forces to allow them to enter illegally, and it said the border guards had refrained from exercising their right to use force against them. 'We hold the Iranian side responsible because they did not fulfill their duties and obligations' to prevent those without visas from approaching the crossing, the ministry said." http://t.uani.com/1jxbVCO Reuters: "China's cabinet has approved the merger of state oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp and Macau-based conglomerate Nam Kwong Group, as part of a plan to consolidate state-owned enterprises to boost competitiveness. The merger could boost the financial standing of Zhuhai Zhenrong, a former defence-sector affiliate that was created in the mid 1990s to deal in Iranian oil, oil industry officials said... Zhuhai Zhenrong imports about 240,000 barrels per day of Iranian crude oil, equal to about 4 percent of China's total crude oil imports, under annual supply contracts with Tehran. It mainly supplies the fuel to China's Sinopec Corp , Asia's largest refiner. Sources familiar with Zhuhai Zhenrong said the merger would also bring Guangdong Zhenrong Energy Co, a Guangzhou-based oil and commodities trader, under the umbrella of the larger combined firm." http://t.uani.com/1XE6sYA         Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.