Former Iran atomic negotiator to be freed on bail

TEHRAN, May 8 (Reuters) A former Iranian nuclear negotiator, who was detained last week for ''security reasons'', is due to be released on bail tomorrow, a judiciary official said.

Iran's Mehr News Agency had earlier said Hossein Mousavian, who was a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team with the European Union, had been freed today but then issued a report he would not be released until a day later.

''He will be released tomorrow on bail,'' the judiciary official told Reuters this evening.

Mousavian, considered a moderate conservative by analysts, was head of the foreign policy committee on the Supreme National Security Council.

Like most other members of the negotiating team, he was replaced by more hardline officials when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005.

When he was arrested, a news agency said he was detained for ''security reasons'' but did not give details.

Documents and his personal computer were being kept by the authorities as the inquiry continued, Mehr reported.

''Investigations about ... accusations against the former member of the nuclear negotiating team will continue,'' Mehr quoted the source as saying.

Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said in a report broadcast this evening that two other people had been summoned yesterday by the authorities in connection with the case. But he gave no further details.

A man arrested on suspicion of leaking secrets about Iran's nuclear programme to an exiled opposition group was sentenced to three years in jail, a news agency reported on Saturday.

During the 2005 presidential race, Ahmadinejad said Iran's nuclear negotiators had been too timid, although after his election win Iran continued talks with the EU to try to find a diplomatic solution to its nuclear dispute.

Iran denies the West's accusations that it wants to use its nuclear programme to make bombs and says its atomic ambitions are limited to generating electricity.

The United Nations has imposed two sets of sanctions on Iran over its refusal to stop its sensitive uranium enrichment work.

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