Iran’s Top Prosecutor Denies Trump’s Claim 800 Prisoners Were Spared Execution

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s attorney general on Friday called U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that he halted the execution of 800 protesters detained there “completely false.” Meanwhile, the total death toll from the bloody crackdown on demonstrations across the country has risen to at least 5,002, activists said.

Activists fear many more have died. They are trying to verify the information Türkiye’s most comprehensive internet outage Iran has exceeded the two-week mark in its history.

Tensions remain high between the United States and Iran as the American aircraft carrier group approaches the Middle East; Trump compared it to a “navy” in comments to reporters late Thursday.

Analysts say military build-up could give Trump the option of launching an attack, but Trump has so far avoided doing so despite repeated warnings to Tehran. Mass execution of prisoners was one of his red lines on military force; the other was the killing of peaceful demonstrators.

“While President Trump now appears to have backed down, perhaps under pressure from regional leaders and aware that airstrikes alone will not be enough to bring down the regime, military assets continue to move into the region, suggesting kinetic action could still occur,” New York-based think tank Soufan Center said in an analysis Friday. he said.

Trump has repeatedly said Iran halted the execution of 800 people detained in protests, without citing the source of the claim. On Friday, Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi, strongly denied this allegation in statements carried by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.

“This claim is completely false; such a number does not exist and the judiciary has not made such a decision,” Movahedi said.

His remarks suggested that the Iranian Foreign Ministry, led by Abbas Araghchi, may have offered this figure to Trump. Araghchi had a direct line to US envoy Steve Witkoff and conducted multiple rounds of negotiations with him on Iran’s nuclear program.

“We have separation of powers, the responsibilities of each institution are clearly defined, and under no circumstances do we take instructions from external powers,” Movahedi said.

Judicial officials referred to some of those detained as “mohareb” – or “Enemies of God.” This charge carries the death penalty. It was used, along with others, to carry out mass executions in 1988 that reportedly killed at least 5,000 people.

Meanwhile, Friday prayer imam in Tehran, Mohammad Javad Haji Ali Akbari, derided Trump as a “yellow-faced, blonde-haired and disgraced man” who “just looks like a barking dog.”

“This stupid man began to threaten the nation, especially because of what he said about the leader of Iran,” the cleric said in comments broadcast on Iranian state radio. “If damage occurs, all your interests and bases in the region will become the clear and definitive target of Iranian forces.”

USA announced the latest death toll Human Rights Activists News AgencyIt was stated that 4,716 of the dead were demonstrators, 203 were government-affiliated, 43 were children and 40 were civilians who did not participate in the protests. It was also stated that more than 26,800 people were detained as part of the authorities’ expanding arrest campaign.

The group’s figures have been accurate in previous unrest in Iran and rely on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths. This death toll exceeds that of other protests and unrest in Iran in decades and is reminiscent of the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iranian government It announced its first death toll on Wednesday, saying 3,117 people had died. It was stated that 2,427 of those who died in the demonstrations that started on December 28 were civilians and security forces, while the rest were “terrorists”. In the past, the Iranian theocracy has undercounted or not reported deaths resulting from unrest.

The Associated Press was unable to independently assess the death toll, in part because authorities cut off internet access and blocked international calls to the country.

Meanwhile, the American military has shifted more military assets to the Middle East, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and associated warships traveling with it from the South China Sea.

A U.S. Navy official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military movements said Thursday that the Lincoln strike group was in the Indian Ocean.

Trump said Thursday aboard Air Force One that the United States was moving ships toward Iran in case he wanted to take action.

“We have a huge fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it,” Trump said.

Trump also mentioned the numerous meetings American officials had with Iran regarding its nuclear program before Israel launched its nuclear program. a 12 day war against the Islamic Republic, where US warplanes bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. He threatened Iran with military action that would make previous US attacks on uranium enrichment facilities “look like peanuts.”

“They should have made a deal before we hit them,” Trump said.

The UK Ministry of Defense also said the joint Eurofighter Typhoon fighter squadron with Qatar (12 Squadron) was “deployed to the (Persian) Gulf for defensive purposes, taking into account regional tensions”.

Iran celebrated “Guardians Day” on Friday, an annual event for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has played a key role in suppressing protests across the country.

To celebrate the day, Iranian state television broadcast a typical religious talk show on Thursday night; Instead, clerics and chanters looked to Iranian military drones. They fired up the engines of several Shahed drones, a version of which is widely used. In Russia’s war against Ukraine.

During the broadcast, a man identified as a member of the security forces, who wore a surgical mask and sunglasses to hide his identity, also made threats against Israel in mixed Hebrew and tried to say, “We are closer to you than you think.”

Konstantin Toropin in Washington and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.