TEHRAN Tehran Governor Ayatollah (his given name) Azarmi in the sixth session of the court hearing on Thursday pleaded innocence and his lawyer asked for one week time to provide the court with a written defense.

Judge Nasser Daqiqi who presided over the Branch 1403 of the Administrative Court asked Azarmi to state his defense.

Azarmi said that the prosecutor has brought five charges against him. The first is ignoring his responsibility in the constituencies of Tehran, Shahr-e Ray and Islamshahr where 3,077 polling stations had been set up (in February election) on the matter of providing a report on the outcome of the election from the polling stations.

He said that he had forwarded the reports to the central office of the constituencies to collect the total votes.

He presented a document to the judge proving that the reports of over 2,500 polling stations have been confirmed by both the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board of the parliamentary elections.

Azarmi accepted the judge's statement and said it is not possible to seek confirmation from both the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board for 2,500 reports.

The judge asked member of the Electoral Board of the Guardian Council Mansour Ghafouri to present his complaint against the governor.

Ghafouri said that since the Recounting Board was stationed at Tehran Governorate, the board did not provide the Guardian Council's representatives with even a computerized form.

He said, "We could not compare the outcome of the first round of counting and the recounting yet. Some candidates say that their votes are different from what has been announced."

(IRNA)