Ruhollah Hosseinian

Ruhollah Hosseinian is a hardline cleric who worked within the Ministry of Intelligence apparatus and later served as a member of parliament. He became notorious for publicly justifying the chain murders on television, declaring: 'We have been a murderer ourselves! Murder of dissidents is not carried out the way that it has been described!' He attended Saeed Emami's memorial service. Hosseinian's open defence of the killings, at a time when the regime was attempting to portray them as the work of 'rogue elements,' was seen as revealing the true sentiment of the hardline establishment toward the assassination campaign.