Family of Iran's Karroubi unable to visit him

AFP, A member of opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi's family said relatives were unable to meet him and his wife despite a top judiciary official saying the couple were at home and not in detention, Karroubi's website reported Friday.

The family member who was not named told the website Sahamnews.org that "in order to prove the lies of the Tehran prosecutor who said that 'Mr Karroubi and (fellow opposition leader Mir Hossein) Mousavi are at home', yesterday we went to Mr Karroubi's home and knocked and knocked several times but no one answered."

"We asked the neighbours and they told us the the lights have been off for some time and specifically no one lives there," the relative added, according to the website.

In a similar move after the Iranian judiciary announcement Mousavi's daughters said Thursday they had been barred from visiting him and their mother, in an open letter posted on Mousavi's website, Kaleme.com.

The daughters said they had been turned away by security personnel when they went to their parents' Tehran home on Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi dismissed claims by relatives of both Mousavi and Karroubi that the two men and their wives had been jailed in the capital.

"Mr Mousavi and Karroubi, along with their wives, are in their homes," Dolatabadi said, backed by Iran's prosecutor general, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie.

France is "very concerned" about the fate of Mousavi and Karroubi, who are "held in an undisclosed location," French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said on Friday.

Contradictory claims have been made regarding the whereabouts of the opposition leaders and their wives over several week, with their family members insisting they were in prison, while officials denied it.

Mousavi and Karroubi, who lost to hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election, strongly oppose his government and have guided a string of protests against him.