Iran’s top prosecutor is insisting that no executions of protesters have been canceled due to foreign pressures, contradicting White House accounts.
President Donald Trump repeated his claim on Thursday to have unilaterally prevented the executions of over 800 protesters in Iran while speaking with reporters on Air Force One.
“I said, ‘If you hang those people, you’re going to be hit harder than you’ve ever been hit,’” Trump said on his way back from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The president alleged that the executions were canceled “an hour before,” calling it a “good sign.”
Trump did not specify who in Iran he spoke to about the executions.
It’s a story that Trump has repeated many times since last week, but now Iranian officials are pushing back on his claims.
Prosecutor-General Mohammad Movahedi told state media on Friday that Trump’s recollection is “completely false.”
“No such number exists, nor has the judiciary made any such decision,” Movahedi told Iranian news agency Mizan. “We have a separation of powers, the responsibilities of each institution are clearly defined, and we do not, under any circumstances, take instructions from foreign powers.”
Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based activist group monitoring Iranian government actions against the public, claims to have confirmed at least 5,002 fatalities since the beginning of the protests in December.
IRANIAN PROTESTS TESTING TEHRAN’S GRIP ON POWER UNLIKE PREVIOUS ROUNDS
It reports that the total number of deaths currently under investigation has risen to 9,787, and the total number of arrests has risen to 26,852.
Trump’s ire toward the Iranian regime has waxed and waned over the weeks since protests began. He has at various points directly threatened military intervention, encouraged citizens to “keep protesting,” and urged dissidents to “take over” the nation’s institutions.
He told Iranians that “help is on the way” earlier this month, but seemed to abandon any plans for military action following the exchange that he interpreted as assuring the commutation of mass executions.
However, Trump announced Thursday that he would be bolstering the U.S. military presence around Iran with “a lot of ships […] just in case.”
TRUMP SAYS ‘ARMADA’ HEADED FOR IRAN, VOWS GREENLAND DETAILS IN TWO WEEKS
“We have an armada — we have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it,” he told reporters.
“We have a big flotilla going in that direction, and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters. “We have a big force going toward Iran. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely.”
Trump said in an interview earlier this week that he has issued orders to completely destroy Iran if its military assassinates him.
