Tehran: Iran's state news agency IRNA maintained on Thursday that "sedition (opposition)" leaders had left Tehran to seek refuge in the north and that "one of them is still there," despite denials by relatives, a news agency and opposition websites.
Without naming anyone, IRNA said "the heads of sedition ran to northern Iran on Tuesday, Mazandaran province, and ...one of them was still there this afternoon (Thursday)," the report said.
"One of the heads of sedition wanted to come back to Tehran but there is no definite news about his coming back," it added, again without naming names.
"The disclosure of information about the sudden exit of the heads of the sedition from Tehran has weakened the political will of the sedition and has made their elements in Tehran deceive the media by denying such reports in order to keep up their morale," it said.
"But unofficial confirmation of this news by some of their insiders has made their effort (of keeping moral) unsuccessful," IRNA added.
Yesterday evening, after hundreds of thousands of government supporters took to the streets in a show of force against the opposition, IRNA reported that Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi had fled the capital fearing for their lives.
PTI
First Published: Friday, January 01, 2010, 09:55