Who killed an Iranian physicist?

Various : The assassination of theoretical physicist Masoud Alimohammadi in Iran last week has drawn vocal comments both in and outside the country in light of the confusion over who carried out the killing.Although Alimohammadi’s research didn’t appear to be related to nuclear weapons, Asia Times Online correspondent Mahan Abedin, an Iran expert, observes that , while this is true, Alimohammadi did have a string of affiliations to scientific and research organizations at the center of Iran’s nuclear program, such as the Theoretical Physics Institute headed by Mohammad Javad Larijani.Alimohammadi was buried on 14 January. More than 1000 mourners turned up, says Voice of America . Al Jazeera English reports that former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani condemned the attack, calling it “terrorism."Pro-reformer Khatami said the bomb attack was carried out by groups seeking to “further destabilize” the country in light of the recent crackdown on the opposition party, which was widely believed to have won the presidential election last June.Alimohammadi was known to have been one of more than 240 academics who signed a petition pledging support to the reformist opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi before the election, and to have appeared in an online video, filmed a week before his death, criticizing the Iranian government, says ScienceInsider .Rafsanjani, who did not publicly back the opposition, said in a statement, carried by the semi-official ILNA news agency, that the bombing was a sign of “a new era of intrigue” in Iran.Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, has stopped short of explicitly accusing the US of being behind the bombing but has accused the US of being partly involved. Bill Burton, the White House deputy press secretary, called those accusations “absurd."Counteracting the report in ScienceInsider, Ali Moghara, who heads the physics faculty at Tehran University, told Al Jazeera that Alimohammadi was just a physicist who engaged in “no political activity."Paul Guinnessy Related Links Physicist killed in Iranian bomb blast Killing of professor sparks fight over his science and his politics