Italy court clears Iranian over opposition murder

ROME, Nov 24 (Reuters) An Italian court today cleared an Iranian man who had been accused of organising the 1993 murder of an Iranian opposition leader on behalf of Tehran's secret services, court officials said.

Amir Mansur Bozorgian, whose whereabouts were unknown, had been tried in absentia.

Bozorgian was accused of being behind the shooting of Mohammed Hossein Naqdi, a leading member of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which wants to oust Iran's clerical rulers.

Naqdi, a former diplomat at Iran's embassy who defected in 1981, was killed on March 16, 1993, by a still-unidentified gunman who shot at his car in northern Rome and sped away on a motorcycle.

The NCRI came to international attention after revealing in 2002 that Tehran was running secret uranium enrichment programmes. It is the political wing of the People's Mujahideen, an armed guerrilla movement listed as a terrorist group by the United States.

REUTERS LL RAI2211