“I was the representative of the Imam [Khomeini”> in 1985 and at the time in accordance with the orders of the Imam we organised events in Medina and Mecca and in the second year we noticed that one of the planes with 110 pilgrims on board had been detained. After following this up, we discovered that certain institutions in Iran had collaborated with the attackers and had placed explosives in the pilgrims’ bags”, Karroubi said in a University in the western town of Hamedan, according to the hard-line state-run daily Sharq, which quoted him in its Tuesday edition.
“Saudi authorities jailed all the individuals responsible for this after having arrested them and told me that I was the representative of the people and in charge of the Iranian pilgrims. They said that these individuals had acted illegally and that I should continue my duties and they will deal with these people themselves”, he said.
Some of these people, who are today pro-American, were united in their abuses against the [ruling”> Al-Saud family, sacrificing national interests for their rigid-mindedness. This was why the Arabs acted in such a manner the following year, after our complaint, and martyred a number of people.
Karroubi was referring to the 1987 riot and subsequent Saudi crackdown in Mecca which left some 500 Iranian pilgrims dead.
The state-run daily Siasat-e Rouz, on May 18, 2002, quoting Youssef Bakhtiyari, from the hard-line faction of Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote that Mohsen Mirdamadi, chair of the Iranian Majlis (parliament) Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the time, was among planners of the act.
Bakhtiyari said, Those who went for Hajj procession in 1987, witnessed the massacre of some 500 Iranian pilgrims by Saudi security forces and police. A group of radical students, among whom were Mr Mohsen Mirdamadi and his friends, planned that after the pilgrims march in Mecca, they would enter the main mosque in the city and take over the microphone to the loudspeaker and chant death to America and say other things. Therefore, some of these men who are now speaking of reforms paved the way for that heinous murder at that time with their extremist actions.
Top regime officials and state-run dailies had previously blamed the main Iranian opposition group, the Peoples Mojahedin, for the massacre. The state-run daily Kayhan wrote on August 1, 1987 of the cooperation between the Mojahedin and the Saudis in the arrest of Iranian pilgrims and the state-run daily Ressalat wrote on August 4 of the same year, The heinous, anti-Islamic, and inhuman murder of Iranian pilgrims in the Mecca killing black day was carried out by Iraqi security forces, the Mojahedin, and Saudi police on the basis of a premeditated scenario.
