International news, this May 23, 1997 as presented by the BBC World Service.
Preliminary results Saturday from Iran’s presidential election showed a landslide victory for a moderate cleric whose triumph would mean a defeat for hard-line mullahs who have ruled since the 1979 Islamic revolution state-run radio reported Tehran radio said Mohammad Khatami had re? ceived more than 6 million of the nearly 9 million votes counted from Friday’s election His main challenger the arch-conservative Parliament Speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-NourLjreceived only about 25 million according to the radio.
The radio said that about one-third of the 31400 polling stations had been counted -final results are expected early Sunday The two other candidates — Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri a former intelligence minister and Syed Reza Zavareie the deputy head of the judiciary — did not receive significant votes The winner will replace President Hashemi Rafsanjani who by law must step down in August after two terms.
Meanwhile, Zaire President Mobutu Sese Seko, 66 and ailing with prostate cancer, left Togo for Morocco this morning in the presidential jet of his old friend, Togolese dictator Gnassingbe Eyadema. He is reportedly en route to France. The former departure comes a week after he fled the country he ruled for nearly 32 years.
Mobutu arrived without warning early Sunday in the small West African country of Togo. His arrival distressed Togo dictator Gnassingbe Eyadema, who was under pressure from opposition leaders who called Mobutu’s presence a disgrace. Eyadema’s staff said today that Mobutu was headed for Rabat. Morocco’s Communications Ministry said Mobutu “has asked to spend several days in Morocco” before moving on to a permanent, unidentified destination. Morocco was among the countries that helped Mobutu crush rebels in the mineral-rich Shaba province in the late 1970s.
And a Bosnian Serb was convicted today of being an accessory to the murder of Muslims in his homeland and sentenced to five years in prison. Novislav Djajic, 34, who was a member of a Bosnian Serb military unit, was tried in Munich, where he had been living since 1993. The three-month proceeding was Germany’s first war crimes trial under international auspices since the Nuremberg trials of top Nazis in 1945. Prosecutors had sought a nine year sentence against Djajic, charged with taking part in the massacre of 14 Muslims in his hometown of Trnovace on June 22, 1992.
And while the Iran election votes are being counted, that’s just a small sample of International news from The BBC World Service for May 23, 1997
