WORLD BRIEFING | MIDDLE EAST (today's nytimes)

Iran: 2 Prisoners Are AIDS Doctors

By NAZILA FATHI

Published: January 20, 2009

Four Iranians imprisoned on charges of trying to overthrow the government with the backing of the C.I.A. include two prominent AIDS doctors, an Iranian intelligence official said Monday. The government reported their convictions on Saturday but had not identified the men, nor reported when they had been arrested or tried. But the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted the unidentified official as saying that two of the prisoners were “doctors named Arash and Kamiar Alaei.” The two men, brothers, founded Iran’s first H.I.V. prevention program and have been jailed since June. NAZILA FATHI