From the Times of London:

An American fugitive, accused of murdering an aide to the late Shah of Iran in the United States, was made an editor of Iran’s English-language television network in Tehran. Hassan Abdulrahman, who is wanted by the FBI for shooting dead Ali Akbar Tabatabai in Maryland, worked for Iran’s flagship broadcaster Press TV, which has bureaus across the world, including London.
A Press TV journalist who resigned in protest over the channel’s coverage of the apparently rigged Iranian election in June told The Times yesterday that Mr Abdulrahman was chief editor at the head office of the network. The journalist, who wanted to remain anonymous for security reasons, said that Mr Abdulrahman showed no remorse when quizzed by staff about murdering Mr Tabatabai. “Knowing that a person wanted by the FBI for murder was influencing the editorial line of the network and choosing the stories people around the world would watch didn’t seem right to me,” the journalist said.

Abdulrahman, who has admitted the murder, claimed to have resigned after the election from his position as chief online editor Iran’s TV network. He refused to get into when and why in an interview by the Times. The newspaper said, though, that he was as “frank about his opinion of Press TV’s quality of journalism as he was about killing Mr Tabatabai, a former press attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Washington. ‘No, I don’t think Press TV is about [real journalism]. By its nature, state journalism is not journalism. They have some programmes on there that might be, but generally it’s not,’ he said.”

The paper also reports that the network, which is being investigated by the British government for breach of “accuracy and impartiality rules” has tried to put a British face on its coverage — “hiring British figures such as the MPs George Galloway and Derek Conway and the journalists Andrew Gilligan and Yvonne Ridley. Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth, is also employed by the Iranian-financed organisation.”