WASHINGTON — A young man who claims to be the son of former Revolutionary Guard Commander Maj. Gen. Mohsen Rezai, one of the most powerful men in Iran, has fled to the United States, where he has been granted refugee status, he said in an interview with The Times on Saturday. He is living in the Los Angeles area.
Ahmad Rezai, 21, said he left Iran to protest the policies of the government, including its support of extremist groups and use of terrorist tactics abroad.
"I want to tell the world that this is the government of Iran, not the people of Iran, that carry out these terrorist activities. The Iranian people are not murderers or killers," he said.
As a voice of Iran's youth, he said, he also wanted to warn Iranians to distance themselves from the clergy-led government.
"I wanted to come abroad to tell the Iranian people what conditions are behind the curtain, since they do not know and everyone lives in fear and under repression," he said. "This is the best way to fight this regime."
Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency, meanwhile, is reporting that Rezai has been kidnapped and is being held in the U.S. against his will.
Over the past three days, Rezai has been spreading his message through extensive interviews to the Persian services of the Voice of America, the British Broadcasting Corp. and Israel Radio, which all transmit programs to Iran, as well as a Persian-language radio station in Los Angeles, KRSI.
In an interview with the VOA on Thursday, which was the first time his presence in the U.S. was disclosed, Rezai outlined what he claims is the route of Iran's assistance to groups such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, or Party of God.
"Sometimes Iran gives them money and they purchase weapons themselves, and other times Iran--through coordination at border posts in Turkey and Syria--sends them weaponry," he said.
For many years, the office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was responsible for ordering extremist attacks that were planned and executed by the Ministry of Intelligence under Ali Fallahian, Rezai told The Times.
Fallahian was replaced last fall after the inauguration of President Mohammad Khatami.
Rezai differentiated, however, between Khamenei, who as supreme leader has ultimate authority in Iran, and Khatami.
Rezai said the new president was not involved in, and does not support, extremist activities.
