GENEVA – Iran's top human rights official accused the United States on Friday of kidnapping and illegally detaining Iranians, but ruled out exchanging them for three US detainees whose trial he expected to start soon. Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary-general of the Iranian High Council for Human Rights, said US authorities were holding six or seven Iranians, including a nuclear scientist who disappeared a year ago. "The United States should be accountable for kidnapping our citizens here and there," Larijani told reporters in Geneva, a day after addressing the UN Human Rights Council. "Our first objection is the way they are detained. Secondly, they are totally in exclusion and there is no contact with them, neither the family nor the government," he said. Iranian television broadcast a video on Monday of a man who said he was Shahram Amiri and had been drugged, abducted and tortured by the CIA. Amiri, a university researcher working for Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. In March, ABC News said he had defected and was helping the CIA. U.S. intelligence has declined to comment. The video was made on April 5 in Arizona, the man in the video says. There was no explanation of how the video was made or how the Iranian broadcaster obtained it. "He was in intense interrogation in isolation for nine months. It is a flagrant violation of human rights of our citizen," Larijani said. "Unfortunately, it is becoming routine in the United States." Iran has no diplomatic relations with the United States and U.S. interests in Tehran are handled by the Swiss embassy. Larijani said neither Swiss nor Iranian officials nor the Iranian detainees' families had had access to them. Regarding the three detained Americans accused of spying, he said: "Our approach is let us be fair on both sides rather than to swap the people. We don't believe in the legitimacy of this kind of action." Larijani was echoing remarks by the foreign minister's spokesman on Tuesday. Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, say they strayed over the border while hiking in the mountains of northern Iraq. Iran's intelligence minister says they are spies. "We hope this court procedure will start as soon as possible," Larijani said, noting it was up to the prosecutor. The mothers of the three US detainees visited their children in May. They said they were being treated well but had had no access to a lawyer. "Our security people are definitely anxious to see what was behind the intrusion of our borders," Larijani said. "We think they should have a fair approach. My recommendation is let us assume they are innocent and see what is against this assumption." Asked if fresh sanctions imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council this week would complicate the detainee issue, Larijani said: "The issue of detainees should be pursued on the humanitarian level, it should not be meddled with other issues."
