Mousavi ally says 69 died in Iran vote unrest: report

Demonstrators and hunger strikers gather in front of the White House in Washington August 8, 2009.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An ally of Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said 69 people were killed in unrest that erupted after the country's disputed June 12 presidential election, the Sarmayeh daily said on Tuesday.

"The names of 69 people who were killed in post-election unrest ... were submitted to parliament for investigation. The report also included the names of about 220 detainees," said Alireza Hosseini Beheshti.

Iranian authorities have said some 26 people were killed in the unrest after the vote, which opposition leaders say was rigged to secure the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was officially sworn in on Wednesday.

Judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said on Tuesday over 4,000 protesters had been arrested nationwide since the vote.

"But 3,700 of them were released in the first week after their arrest," Jamshidi told a news conference.

Among those still in prison are senior pro-reform politicians, journalists, activists and lawyers.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said parliament would carefully review cases of the detainees and those killed in the post-election unrest, the Etemad-e melli newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi on Sunday said on his website that some protesters, both male and female, had been raped while in detention and that he had written to the head of a powerful arbitration body calling for an investigation.

"Such claims (of rape and abuse of detainees) will be investigated by parliament," Larijani said.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered a prison's closure in July, citing a "lack of necessary standards" to preserve prisoners' rights, and police chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam said some of the protesters held at the Kahrizak detention center had been tortured.

Many of the post-election detainees were held in Kahrizak in southern Tehran, which was built to house people who broke the country's vice laws.

At least three people died in custody there and widespread anger erupted as news spread of abuse in the jail.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by Jon Boyle)