Iran accuses US, Israel of murdering nuclear scientist

TEHRAN: A leading Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran on Tuesday in a rare bomb attack that the government quickly blamed on "mercenaries" in the pay of arch foes the United States and Israel.

The killing in broad daylight comes amid an increasingly bitter standoff between Iran and world powers over Tehran's controversial nuclear drive, which the West suspects is masking an atomic weapons programme.

Massoud Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at prestigious Tehran University, died when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle was triggered by remote control outside his home in northern Tehran, state media said.

"One can see in preliminary investigations signs of evilness by the triangle of the Zionist regime, America and their mercenaries in Iran in this terrorist incident," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

The United States dismissed the allegations out of hand. "Charges of US involvement are absurd," state department spokesman Mark Toner said in Washington.

Tehran's chief prosecutor too implicated the US and Israel, saying their respective intelligence services were likely behind the attack.

"Given the fact that Massoud Ali Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, the CIA and Mossad services and agents most likely have had a hand in it," Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the state broadcaster's news service.

via:-timesofindia.indiatimes