Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, May 15 – Iran’s hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has replaced the country's Interior Minister, state media reported on Thursday.
Radical Shiite cleric Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi was dismissed from the post, a move which had been anticipated since April.
Mehdi Hashemi has been appointed as caretaker minister, the official state daily 'Iran' wrote.
Hojjatol-Islam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, 49, was previously in charge of the Special Department for Security and Intelligence in the Office of the Supreme Leader.
He is also a former Deputy Minister of Intelligence and Security and a former Military Revolutionary Prosecutor. Human rights groups charge that Pour-Mohammadi oversaw the murder of thousands of political prisoners in Iranian jails in 1988.
