After admitting to his sexual crimes and announcing his repentance in 2012, prominent Iranian recitalist Saied Tousi reportedly returned to committing sexual acts against child students, with Khamenei and his assistants, including the head of the Supreme Council of the Quran, failing to issue any condemnation, or to take any action against him, instead allowing him to continue working as Quran reciter in the Council and as a regular guest in Khamenei’s home.
♦ Saied Tousi and the Supreme Council of the Quran:
The Supreme Council is responsible for organizing Quranic recitation sessions in different places, with its list of famous reciters showing that Saied Tousi was regularly invited, more often than any of his colleagues that appearing regularly at public Quranic recitation events in the years 2013 and 2014. As a widely acknowledged expert, he had responsibility for teaching young pupils in the Quranic compound, bringing him into close contact with the reciter trainees who he assaulted, with this behavior facilitated by his prominent status within the Supreme Council of the Quran.
Exposing his sexual abuses: Tousi threatens to reveal other pedophiles, with Revolutionary Guards Corps trying to cover it up
Recent online reports circulated by Iranian media reported that the recitalist in Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s home, Saied Tousi, raped at least 19 young children who he was supposedly training in Quranic recitation. Among the sites that published this news was “Amad News,” as well as the Persian-language “Voice of America” channel. The reports confirmed that Tousi, a close friend of Ayatollah Khamenei, who twice won first place prize in Quranic memorization contests in Iran, raped at least 19 young boys aged between 12 and 14. After the scandal was publicly exposed, the Amad News website, which is closely linked to Iranian reformists, revealed that senior Iranian regime security officials at the headquarters of the government’s security services had conspired to cover up the abuse in order to permanently close the “Saied Tousi” file, with some suggesting indirectly that he might be assassinated in a view to spare the Iranian leadership embarrassment.
According to a report from Amad News [1], members of an unnamed prominent body’s Security Central Council held an urgent meeting to discuss the revelations about Tousi’s sexual abuse of children. The report was ambiguous in its language and references regarding the body in question and the session, with the authors apparently not wishing to risk arrest by being too direct, describing the focus of the discussions as an “operational exploratory mission”, and suggesting that the meeting was held in order to reach a conclusive decision on Tousi’s future. For Iranian readers the body referred to is very clearly the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is strongly linked to Ayatollah Khamenei.
According to the report, those present at the two-hour meeting analyzed the information on Tousi’s crimes and listened to interviews with two of his victims recorded by the Voice of America channel, which were provided by Mahdi Falahati [2]. After discussing their findings, the senior IRGC officials then reportedly took the decision to have Tousi assassinated.
According to the report, this decision was reached after the officials analyzed the “audio file of Saied Tousi in his interview with a witness,” in which Tousi reportedly implicitly threatened to implicate 100 other child abusers of his acquaintance amongst other senior regime officials.
The investigation into his crimes will reportedly take place in the presence of senior officials of the Iranian judiciary, with the possible scandal of any revelations during this inquiry being the primary incentive for the IRGC’s decision to have him assassinated in order to avoid any embarrassment to senior regime officials involved in “collective abuse by Tousi, accompanied by some influential figures against a number of teenagers.” According to the report on Amad News, the IRGC planned to blame the assassination on Tousi’s victims, who could then be collectively arrested, imprisoned and executed on the pretext of being involved in his killing.
The Amad News website further reported that it accepted full responsibility for publishing the details of the alleged plot by the IRGC (although it took care not to name them as the responsible body directly), which was codenamed ‘Operation Exploratory’, and was aware of the extent of turmoil that could result from the revelations. The writer of the report stated that if any harm should befall Saied Tousi prior to his trial, the responsibility would lie wholly with regime officials, saying that the only way to expose the full truth of the case was to keep Saied Tousi safe so that he could be subject to a “fair trial in the presence of an impartial judiciary”, calling for the “implementation of justice” for this case.
♦ Iranian judiciary prefers not to prosecute child abusers
Amazingly, Mohsen Ezhei, the official spokesperson for the Iranian justice system [3], declared that the court had previously taken a final decision not to prosecute Saied Tousi over the alleged sexual abuse of young boys under his care. According to Mizan Online News Agency, the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, Ezhei told journalists during a press conference on Sunday: “There are four complainants in Saied Tousi case,” stating that among the charges against Saied Tousi are “encouragement of corruption.” Adding that an initial verdict has already been reached, with a decision not to prosecute the senior regime official over the accusations. However, he said, the court had overturned the previous decision against prosecution and decided to continue with the investigation.
Another news agency, ISNA, also quoted the judiciary spokesperson as saying: “The issue of Tousi is assigned to a religious and experienced judge for consultation, and will continue to be investigated more accurately.” Ezhei suggested indirectly, however, that the Islamic Republic’s judiciary does not encourage filing complaints concerning sexual abuse against children, saying:” The announcement of such cases at the end will harm the Complainants’ reputation more than [that of] the accused, sometimes causing vague obscenity. ”
♦ Insincere Tousi repentance
Some the families of Tousi’s child victims spoke to the channel of Voice of America, showing evidence confirming what Tousi had done to their sons. The channel reported that, according to the parents, Tousi had announced his repentance in 2012 before the “Supreme Council of the Quran,” and signed a document supposedly expressing his remorse, which was delivered to the head of the judiciary, Sadeq Larijani in a relatively transparent effort to cover up the abuse. Amongst the senior officials who have been confirmed as having been aware of this document were Syed Ali Moghadam, the public relations assistant in Khamenei’s office, who was responsible for dealing with suggestions, questions, and complaints about the Supreme Leader from the people. Moghadam also received letters of complaint from the victims about Tousi’s abuse.
According to the parents, Moghadam showed no concern or even any reaction to their complaints of sexual abuse by Tousi and even prevented Kazem Sadeqi, the interim imam responsible for Friday prayers in Tehran at the time from becoming involved in investigating the case after the parents took their case to him (Sadeghi).
According to a report on the ‘Iran wire website [4],’ the complainants stated that Moghadam had deliberately obstructed legal investigations into the complaints against Tousi, with the report claiming that Khamenei had issued orders to Moghadam to quash any further investigation, telling him “End this case [5].”
As well as being Khamenei’s senior PR official, Syed Ali Moghadam also is the president of the center of the Printing and Publication of the Quran in Iran, and head of the Supreme Council of the Quran, which was established in 1991 and has been chaired by him ever since up to the present moment.
♦ Tousi carries on as normal, attending prestigious events
It is worth mentioning that the last prestigious public Quranic recitation event at which Tousi was an honored guest and reciter was held on October 3, despite the fact that his court case on charges of encouraging corruption is still active, according to the spokesperson of the Iranian judiciary.
