By Safa Haeri

PARIS-TEHRAN 12 Sept. (IPS) Four students leaders have been sentenced death and more could face same punishment because of their "participation and leading" the last July pro-democracy student's protests, an Islamic judge revealed Sunday.

"Four agents involved in the July incidents at Tehran university dormitory have been sentenced to death", announced hojatoleslam Qolamhossein Rahbarpour, the Head of Tehran Islamic revolutionary court, adding that the verdict for two of them has already been approved by the Supreme Court.

In an exclusive interview with the radical daily Jomhuri Eslami which belongs to the ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, the leader of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Rahbarpour said the four were convicted for their role in the unrest that shook the 20 years-old theocratic system of Iran and surprised both the Iranians and the world by it's extent.

"With regard to the unrest in July in Tehran, so far four people have been sentenced to death. The sentences of two of these people have been approved by the Supreme Court, and the dossiers on the two others are under review by that court,'' Rahbarpour said, without identifying any of those convicted.

In the aftermath of the riots, the worst the ruling Iranian clerics had to face since they came to power in 1979, the Voice and Visage (Radio and Television) of the Islamic Republic that is under the direct control of the leader broadcast so-called "confessions" by some of the arrested student's leaders, admitting to contacts with Iranian opposition groups outside Iran, including the Monarchists and receiving financial and material support from them.

Among them were Mr. Manouchehr Mohammad, the leader of the Association of Nationalist Iranian Students (ANIS), his deputy, Mr. Qolamreza Mohajeri-Nezhad and Mrs. Malous Radnia, better known as Maryam Shansi, a sympatiser as well as the leader of Marz Por Gohar, a smaller students organisation.

"The people who laid the grounds...for the riots...are definitely criminals'', the official news agency IRNA quoted him as having told the radical daily.

The students rioted after plain cloth thugs and hard line vigilante, backed by Law Enforcement Forces and elements of anti-riot units of the Information (Intelligence) Ministry stormed out students dormitories where a small group of students was peacefully protesting the banning of "Salam", an influential pro-reform newspaper that was shut down on 8th of July by order from the conservatives-controlled Judiciary.

Elaborating further on the incidents that culminated in open anti-regime demonstrations on 13th of July, with posters of Mr. Khameneh'i being burned, banks and public buildings attacked and fire set to buses, -- acts that latter was found to be the work of Intelligence Ministry's specially trained agents provocateurs -- Mr. Rahbarpour revealed that in fact 1,500 people had been arrested by the LEF and security forces, 500 of whom released in early stages of investigations while cases of the remaining 1,000 was transferred to the Islamic Revolutionary Court.

This was in flagrant contradiction with earlier official statements saying a very limited number of students were still detained.

He held out the possibility of further death sentences among the students who are detained.

''Of course, there are other cases with heavy offences but since they have links with certain bands and groups, the verdict concerning them has not been issued yet", adding that "parts of the cases are still under investigation as they were linked to other people or other cases, some of the accused had independent cases while some had links with groups such as the Iranian People's Party of the slained Dariush forouhar, the ANIS, the Marz Por Gpohar, the Pan-Iranist Party and the Tabarzadi group.

Leader of the Bureau of Strengthening Unity BSU), the largest student's organisations, Mr Heshmatollah Tabarzadi was (and still is) in jail when the riots broke out.

While promising harsh punishment for those among students responsible for the protest movement, singling out the Students Elected Council, created by the students during the unrest to represent their demands for greater freedoms and an end to hard-line violence in the one hand and the BSU on the other for ignoring the "broader interests of the Islamic Republic", Mr. Rahbarpour did not mentioned the provocative role played by the LEF and other pressure groups that attacked the students in the early hours of the morning of 9th July.

In a report filed for the Supreme Council for National Security (SCNS) by a seven men investigating team, the LEF, the Islamic vigilante, plain cloth thugs belonging to the Ansar hezbollah pressure group were accused of having provoked the student's violence and as a result, the Commander of the LEF for Greater Tehran was sacked.

Mr. Davoud Soleimani, a vice Chancellor of the Tehran University accused the LEF and other security services of providing fabricated information to the SCNS, saying he saw by himself the Islamist zealots throwing students out the windows.

Though students organisations claims that at least 5 people were killed in the attack and more than 20 others are still missing, Mr. Rahbarpour reiterated that only one person he identified as Ezzat Ebrahim-Nezhad, was killed in the dormitory unrest, adding that so far no one has been arrested on charges of murder.

Elaborating on the role played in the incidents by Mrs. Amir Entezam (the wife of Mr. Abbas Amir-Entezam who served as the official Spokesman in the late Mehdi Bazargan's government and is considered as one of Iran's and probably the world's oldest political prisoner), the cleric mentioned her "close co-operation" with Mr. Mohammadi's organisation, the official news agency IRNA said in reporting the interview.

Mrs. Amir-Entezam was detained briefly after the protest was crushed.

Acting on orders from Mr. Khameneh'i, hard line clerics denounced the protest movement and accused the student's leaders of "serving US and Zionists" interests rather than those of Islam and the Islamic revolution.

The 6 days protest movement that ended with anti-students, pro-Khameneh'i rallies organised by the conservatives also damaged President Mohammad Khatami's popularity when he openly condemned the students for the violence, opening the way for the hard liners to crack down the pro-democracy action. ENDS STUDENTS KILLED 12999