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Bashiri Rad, giving only the initials of the convicts said that “MZ and AP were convicted for ties with the Kingdom Assembly of Iran and NA for ties with the Monafeghin (exiled opposition group commonly known as the People’s Mujahedeen).”

Massive street protests broke out in Iran following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, which opposition groups say were rigged.

About 4,000 people were initially arrested and 140, including senior reformers and journalists, have been put on trial on charges of seeking a “soft” overthrow of the regime and inciting protests.

Iran is facing the worst unrest since 1979

On Thursday, a reformist website reported that a member of a group seeking to restore Iran’s monarchy has been sentenced to death for his involvement in the unrest, identifying him as Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani.

Judiciary officials were not available to confirm if he was the “MZ” mentioned by ISNA on Saturday.

On Friday, Amnesty International urged Tehran to lift the death sentence on Zamani. A member of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, he was among scores of arrested people in the post-vote mass demonstrations, it said.

Amnesty condemned such “show trials” as a “mockery of justice.”

Bashiri Rad said the death sentences were “not final and they can still be appealed to the Supreme Court.”

Under Iranian law, convicts may appeal their sentences, which must be upheld by both the appeals court and the Supreme Court before they are carried out.

Uranium enrichment

Environmental activists in Germany brandish anti-nuclear posters

Meanwhile in other Iran news the Islamic Republic said it will enrich uranium, the most controversial part of its atomic program, to the 20-percent purity required for a research reactor in Tehran if third-party deals fail.

Ali Shirzadian, spokesman of Iran Atomic Energy Organization, said the U.N. atomic watchdog would be responsible if any third-party deal to process high grade uranium broke down.

He also expressed hope the United States would not “disturb” any such deal.

“We will write a letter and announce to the (International Atomic Energy Agency) agency that Iran will act directly to supply the fuel for the Tehran reactor,” ISNA news agency quoted Shirzadian as saying when asked what would happen if proposed third-party deals fail.

Officials from Iran, the United States, Russia, France and the IAEA are to meet in Vienna on Oct. 19 to work out the modalities for deals under which Tehran has said it is ready to buy 20 percent pure uranium from abroad.

“Iran fully owns the enrichment technology and therefore it will sit at the negotiating table with leverage,” Shirzadian said, adding that Tehran prefers to “buy the fuel for the Tehran reactor in bulk as it is more economical.”

He said the reactor needs around 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of 20 percent pure uranium to operate, but did not say how long that would last.

During recent talks in Geneva between Tehran and six major world powers, Iran agreed to buy the higher grade uranium required from overseas suppliers.

Uranium enrichment lies at the heart of Western concerns about the Iranian nuclear programme. The sensitive process can produce fuel for civilian nuclear reactors or, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

Shirzadian said Tehran will enter the Vienna talks and “if an agreement is arrived at and then not implemented for any reason, the agency and the country which broke it will be blamed.”

“If the United States wants to disturb … it is not a matter between Iran and the agency. It is a matter between the agency and the United States,” Shirzadian added, suggesting that would be responsibility of the agency to tackle that issue and that Iran would proceed on its own for higher enrichment.