AFP - Hardline former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi dismissed charges he was to blame for sending post-election protestors to a notorious jail where some youths died, in a report on Sunday.

Mortazavi told Fars news agency he could not have ordered the detention of 147 protestors in Kahrizak prison as he was "on leave during the main period" it happened, but defended his judges' decision to do so.

Last week a parliamentary fact-finding committee probing unrest after disputed June presidential polls held Mortazavi responsible for keeping the protesters arrested on July 9 in the prison under difficult conditions.

The MPs' report said the detainees were beaten and humiliated by their jailors, and highlighted the death of three young protesters from injuries inflicted while being held.

Mortazavi, who hunted down scores of dissidents and journalists during his six years in office, complained that publicising the charges would only serve to "create friction in the minds of the public and pollute the media atmosphere."

"Those people on July 9 caused rioting with daggers and knives (and) openly disturbed order... therefore they were mostly real thugs... and sending them to Kahrizak was appropriate," Mortazavi said.

The prison south of Tehran was ordered shut by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in late July after reports about the abuse of detainees.

Mortazavi, 42, was sacked from his post as Tehran prosecutor in late August and given a largely bureaucratic position as one of the deputies of the new Tehran prosecutor general.

The unrest was triggered by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election in the June 12 vote, which the opposition charged was massively rigged.

Hundreds of protestors have been arrested in protests and sporadic demonstrations ever since.

The authorities said 36 people were killed in the protests, but the opposition claimed 72 were killed and that some protesters were raped in custody.