Freed writer tells Iran agency i was duped by US

TEHRAN, Aug 31 (Reuters) A Canadian-Iranian writer freed after four months in an Iranian jail for allegedly endangering state security was quoted by an Iranian news agency today as saying he had been duped into aiding US organisations.

''I used to write articles about Iran and the West Asia in some Web sites which I was not aware were linked to intelligence services,'' Ramin Jahanbegloo, 46, told Iran's student news agency ISNA shortly after his release yesterday.

''While in prison, I reached the conclusion that the American organisations involved me in an affair which was not my intention to get involved in,'' ISNA quoted him as saying.

He was not available for comment today. Several dissidents have in the past made apparent confessions to Iranian media during or after their detention.

Jahanbegloo was released from Iran's notorious Evin prison on Wednesday. He was arrested at the end of April for having contacts with foreigners and undermining state security.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned against a ''velvet revolution'', a supposed US plot to use intellectuals and others inside the country to bring about ''regime change''.

A senior judiciary official was quoted as saying this month that Jahanbegloo had confessed to trying to undermine the Islamic Republic's system of clerical rule and had apologised.

''I have accepted the charge of acting against national security ... but I did not know my activities were endangering state security,'' Jahanbegloo told ISNA.

Jahanbegloo has worked and lectured on democracy in Iran and how the Islamic Republic can engage with the West and has written on the importance of acknowledging the Holocaust, which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called a ''myth''.

According to ISNA, Jahanbegloo said many Iranian intellectuals were in danger of being tricked into ''acting against national security'' by ''a network that was active overseas''.

Jahanbegloo's case strained Iran's relations with Canada, which have been icy since Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died in detention in Iran in 2003 after being arrested for photographing Evin prison.

The European Union criticised Jahanbegloo's treatment and Western diplomats said his detention was aimed at intimidating and silencing critics.

''The first month (in detention) was very difficult for me,'' he told ISNA. ''Then for three months I was in solitary cell, with a television ... I was not under physical and psychological pressure.

But I would not wish anyone to experience the same thing.'' The philosopher, who has published some 20 books in English, French and Farsi and interviewed several global figures such as the Dalai Lama and linguist Noam Chomsky, called on the establishment to provide support to intellectuals.

''Why was I attracted by such organisations? Why did I want to get scholarships? As an intellectual, when you can't even teach at (an Iranian) university, then you become attracted by such offers,'' he said.

Reuters LL GC1910