There is a report that Ministry of Information agents raided Professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi’s home and confiscated his documents a day prior to his assassination. The prominent university physicist and open supporter of the Green movement was killed in mid-January when a remote-controlled bomb detonated in front of his northern Tehran home. It is also being reported that Ali Mohammadi resigned from all his duties that required involvement with the country's nuclear organizations two weeks before he was murdered.After Ali Mohammadi's death, the regime hastily claimed he was a nuclear scientist killed by both foreign-funded monarchist elements and the MEK terrorist group. The mainstream media quickly picked up the official state line and began reporting that an Iranian nuclear physicist had been killed.
In reality, Ali Mohammadi was an expert in particle (and not nuclear) physics, and not one of the articles appearing in his extensive publication trail is nuclear-related. He had, however, become recently vocal in his support for the Green movement and had publicly backed Mir Hossein Mousavi in a petition signed before the June 2009 election.
After his death, his funeral procession and coffin were literally hijacked by security and plainclothes forces and turned into an impromptu pro-government rally. Enraged mourners, students and faculty eventually began scuffling and shouting anti-regime slogans back at the forces all while the late professor's family tried to grieve.
It is also being reported that Ali Mohammadi's family was intimidated by intelligence agents to not report the raid on the house. A group of more than 100 scholars have called for an independent investigation into the academic's death.
(h/t Persian2English).
