TEHRAN -- Bench 3 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court reopened the third open session here Saturday to investigate top dissident journalist Akbar Ganji who on Thursday accused former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian of being behind the 1998 serial murders of intellectuals and political dissidents.

Ganji faces charges arising from articles which he wrote and published in several dailies, now defunct, in which he implicated certain officials in the serial murders.

He is further charged with gathering of classified documents and insulting the Founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini during the April 7-8 Berlin Conference on the future of Iran's reform movement.

Another accomplice to be tried in the same session, Khalil Rostamkhani is charged with participation in the Berlin Conference, membership in the Communism Unity Organization and waging propaganda against the Islamic regime.

The April 7-8 conference in Berlin was organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation to discuss the impact of the Sixth Parliament elections in Iran which gave pro-reform legislators majority power in the legislature. The conference was marred by exiled groups.

Last week, penitentiary officials denied Ganji's claims that he has been tortured by guards in Evin Prison.

"The allegations by Akbar Ganji are sheer lies and intended as blackmail," the prisons authority said.

Last Thursday, Ganji dared to say, "Former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian is the key to the serial murders."

He also accused Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Tehran's deputy justice chief and head of the Special Court for the Clergy, of ordering the murder of dissident Pirouz Davani.

He denied that his participation in a conference with Germany's environmentalist Greens Party had threatened Iran's national security.

(IRNA)