Iran grants conditional release to Montazeri’s son

TEHRAN: The jailed son of Ayatollah Montazeri, one-time heir to Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, has been granted a conditional release, a news agency linked to the judiciary said on Saturday.

Mizanonline reported that Ahmad Montazeri, a cleric serving a six-year jail term for "action against national security", had been released after being pardoned by Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ahmad Montazeri had agreed not to "take action against the regime", failing which he would return to prison.

An appeals court ruled that the cleric, whose late father had originally been lined up to replace Khomeini before being sidelined, should serve a six-year term rather than 21 years as ordered by a religious court, Mizanonline reported last month.

He was also convicted of spreading "lies about the founder of the Islamic republic", Khomeini.

In August 2016, Montazeri released recordings in which his father, Hossein Ali Montazeri, condemned the 1988 executions of thousands of members of the People’s Mujahedeen armed opposition group ordered by Khomeini shortly before his death.