TEHRAN, May 22: An Iranian court has sentenced two university lecturers to two months in jail for defamation in debate articles in the runup to Friday's presidential election, Iran's official news agency IRNA said.

It said the Tehran court also ordered Najafqoli Habibi and Sediqeh Vasmaqi to pay a fine of one million rials ($ 330) each for slandering a Parliament deputy who is a close ally of leading Presidential candidate Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri.

They had written critical articles about a visit to Britain in February by Mohammad Javad Larijani during which he explained Nateq-Nouri's views and programmes. The daily Salam said a court in Tehran ordered the seizure of the latest issue of a weekly published by the Ansar-e Hizbollah group for insulting another leading candidate, Mohammad Khatami.

The court also summoned Hossein Allahkaram, head of the group and an officer in the revolutionary guards, on charges of ``making insulting lectures and fabricating lies towards Khatami,'' the newspaper said.

A special court hearing press offences suspended the magazine Aftabgardan and fined its publisher, Tehran's pro-Khatami mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi, for publishing an article critical of the state radio and television, IRNA said.Khatami's supporters have blasted the radio and television, accusing it of giving free publicity to Nateq-Nouri's campaign.

The court also fined Karbaschi 20 million rials ($ 6,700).

Meanwhile, the presidential candidates launched their final campaign efforts, with conflicting opinion polls unable to agree on a clear likely winner in the election.

The Islamic Republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said at a religious gathering in Tehran that the election was a divine test for the nation.

``Excitement and liveliness flood the country. This is exactly what we begged of god and what our enemies did not want. They wanted people to ignore the elections,'' he said.

Khamenei said a large turnout in the election would be ``a smack in the mouth of the enemy.''He appealed for calm and said there were signs of the enemy's hand playing tricks in Iran and fabricating rumours about the possibility of vote-rigging.

A nationwide poll by group of centrists and technocrats backing Mohammad Khatami published in Akhbar newspaper gave the former Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister 59 per cent of popular support with 30 per cent for his main rival, Parliament Speaker Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri. It gave the two other candidates the remaining 11 percent.

A poll published on Tuesday showed the reverse result with a clear lead for Nateq-Nouri.

The presidency is Iran's highest elective office but second in authority to the supreme leader. The post of prime minister was abolished in 1989.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.