TEHRAN (Reuters) - This week's assassination of an Iranian scientist was carried out in a "Zionist style," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday, in his first direct comment on the bombing attack in Tehran.
Iranian officials and media have blamed both Israel, which Tehran calls "the Zionist regime," and the United States for Tuesday's killing of professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi. Washington has dismissed the charge of U.S. involvement as absurd.
"The depth of the enemies' grudge can be seen in the university professor's assassination," Ahmadinejad said, ISNA news agency reported.
"The manner of bomb planting shows a Zionist style and they want to make sure that Iran would not advance," he said.
State media have said Ali-Mohammadi was killed by a remote controlled bomb on a motorcycle. When he was buried in Tehran on Thursday, the crowd chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," state television reported.
Iranian officials have described the professor as a nuclear scientist but a spokesman said he did not work for the Atomic Energy Organization at the center of the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program.
"They don't want to see thinkers and scientists in Iran and do not want to see its development," Ahmadinejad said, referring to Iran's foes, IRNA news agency reported.
"The enemies cannot take away the concept of genius from Iran by killing geniuses."
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