Iran's former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has levelled damning charges against IRGC Intelligence Chief calling him "psychologically imbalanced" and thus not fit for the job.
In a video released on the ultra-conservative former president's page on the popular messaging service Telegram on Sunday September 16, Ahmadinejad lashed out at Hossein Taeb, the hard-line cleric who chairs the notorious intelligence organization of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and said all he does is "fabricating cases."
Ahmadinejad added in the video that during his presidency, he was against Taeb taking the job, saying, "All state officials know that he is imbalanced and everyone knows what he has been up to."
He said he believed at the time that if Taeb was appointed the IRGC intelligence chief he would sow discord between powers of the government and state institutions.
Ahmadinejad also revealed that Taeb who was a deputy intelligence minister under former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani was removed from his post for instigating disputes among various officials.
"They kicked him out of the Intelligence Ministry, but later they gave him a top post with full authority elsewhere, violating the law," said Ahmadinejad.
The IRGC intelligence has been in charge of nearly every controversial security case including those involving the detention of a dozen environmentalists and scores of Sufis, charging all of them with espionage and other accusations.
Iran's Supreme Leader elevated the former IRGC Intelligence Unit, which was established in 1997 to clamp down on reformist activists, to the higher level of an “Organization” with a broader mandate and appointed Taeb as its chief in 2009 following the unrest after the disputed 2009 presidential elections.
Before 1997, IRGC Intelligence mainly dealt with breach of security within the ranks of the Guards Corps.
The IRGC Intelligence unit has arrested hundreds of political and civil right activists, particularly after 2000.
Taeb has been sanctioned by EU because of "gross violation of human rights" of Iranian citizens and is barred from entering EU countries.
Ahmadinejad said the IRGC Intelligence Organization has its own prisons, and this is "unlawful."