TEHRAN The Judiciary of the Islamic Republic yesterday wiped off a dark stain from its system when it issued a judgment for the killers of intellectuals and dissidents in the serial murders of 1998.

The killers were rogue agents and once worked for the Ministry of Information.

The trial was held behind closed doors. The Information Minister Ali Younessi announced before the trial that due to the sensitivity of the case, the trial would be held behind closed doors.

According to IRNA, the presiding Judge of Bench 5 of Tehran's Military Court, Mohammadreza Aqiqi, here on Saturday announced the judgment for 18 defendants of the 'serial murder case'.

The first and second defendants, Seyed Mostafa Kazemi and Mehrdad Alikhani, were each sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment.

The third defendant Ali [Reza] Roshani was sentenced to death twice, while the fourth and the fifth defendants Mahmoud Ja'farzadeh and Ali (Mostafa) Mohseni were sentenced to death once.

Morteza Haqani, Iraj Amouzegar and Alireza Akbarian, the seventh, ninth and thirteenth defendants respectively, were acquitted.

Hamid Rassouli and Mohammad Azizi, the sixth and the eighth defendants were each sentenced to life imprisonment twice, while Abolfazl Moslemi, the tenth defendant, was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Mohammad-Hossein Asna Ashar and Ali Safaeipour, the eleventh and twelfth defendants were each sentenced to seven years in prison, while Morteza Fallah, the fourteenth defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mostafa Hashemi, Ali Nazeri, Asghar Sayyah and Khosro Barati, the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth defendants were sentenced to eight years and six months, two years and six months, six years and 10 years in prison, respectively.

Appeals can be made to all judgments at the country's Supreme Court.

Only two of the suspects pleaded 'not guilty' in the case due to 'national security concerns'.

The others all confessed to some role in the murders of nationalist leader Dariush Forouhar and his wife, Parvaneh, as well as outspoken writers Mohammad-Ja'far Pouyandeh and Mohammad-Ali Mokhtari.

The family members and friends of the victims voiced their utmost anger at the trial's delay. They boycotted the trial to protest the secrecy surrounding the controversial case.

The intelligence agent considered to be the mastermind behind the killings, Saeid Emami, was reported to have committed suicide in prison by swallowing domestically produced depilatory.

Observers believe that the case of the serial murders was politicized by many at home and abroad. It has been a big plot that was engineered in still unknown circumstances to paint a wrong image of the Islamic Republic.

It is the duty of the Judiciary to do everything possible to clear the serial murder case from all doubt.

Why is it that the court was more lenient on those who ordered the crimes than on those who committed the crimes? Those who committed the crimes were only following orders -- orders of the mastermind.