Rouhani says Iran will retaliate for scientist killing ‘at the proper time’

Iran will retaliate for the killing of its prominent nuclear scientist at “the proper time”, President Hassan Rouhani said in a televised speech on Saturday, a day after Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed in an ambush near Tehran.

Rouhani accused Israel of the killing.

“Our people are wiser than to fall in the trap of the Zionist regime (Israel) … Iran will surely respond to the martyrdom of our scientist at the proper time,” he said.

Prominent Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in an attack outside Tehran on Friday, was widely seen outside the country as a leading figure in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme. Iran denies his involvement.

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT HIM?

Western officials and experts believe Fakhrizadeh played a pivotal role in suspected Iranian work in the past to develop the means to assemble a nuclear warhead behind the facade of a declared civilian uranium enrichment programme.

Iran denies ever having sought to develop a nuclear weapon.

A landmark report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog in 2011 identified Fakhrizadeh as a central figure in suspected Iranian work to develop technology and skills needed for atomic bombs, and suggested he may still have a role in such activity.