Iran's murderous regime....

Nothing like having some murderers in your government.

ran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has packed his government with former security and intelligence officials responsible for serious human rights abuses, including the killing of thousands of dissidents in Iranian jails, a leading human rights group said yesterday.

After Mr Ahmadinejad caused renewed international outrage by calling the Nazi Holocaust of Jews a "myth", a report by Human Rights Watch, based in New York, took aim at his hardline cabinet - in particular the new interior minister, Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi.

Mr Pour-Mohammadi, a notorious former deputy intelligence minister, held the post from 1987 to 1999 at a time when his agents "systematically engaged in extra-judicial killings of opposition figures, political activists and intellectuals", HRW said.

The report, entitled Ministers of Murder: Iran's New Security Cabinet, links him to the murder of thousands of political prisoners in Iranian jails in 1988.

"The deliberate and systematic manner in which these extra-judicial executions took place may constitute a crime against humanity under international law," said HRW.