CAIRO -- An Iranian arrested in the country's post-election unrest has been sentenced to death, according to reports on a Web site aligned with the reformist movement.

If so, it is the first death sentence to be issued in cases involving the hundreds charged in the vast protests that followed the declaration of a landslide victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 elections.

At least 30 people were killed and thousands arrested in the government crackdown on the millions of Iranians who took to the streets charging fraud and vote rigging. The government denounced the protests as being part of a prepared plan to overthrow it and is running mass trials involving hundreds of defendants.

The man, Mohammad-Reza Ali-Zamani, is a member of a group called Kingdom Assembly of Iran, which is considered a terrorist organization in Iran for seeking to replace the Islamic theocracy by restoring the Shah to the throne, according to Iranian Web sites.

He was sentenced to death in a verdict issued Monday, according to the Web site Mowjcamp.com, which said Thursday that he had been taken from Evin prison in Tehran "to the revolutionary tribunal, where he was informed of the verdict."

The government did not confirm or deny the report. But in August, the semiofficial Mehr news service reported that Mr. Zamani was a member of the group.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based research group focused on international security, said he saw the severe sentence as another effort by the government to try to ward off any return to the protests and unrest that roiled the country after the elections. While the government succeeded in ending street protests, students returning for the school year have protested at universities around the country.

"It sounds like the regime continues to feel very vulnerable and is utilizing all the powers of control at its disposal to stamp out protests," Mr. Fitzpatrick said.

First Published: October 8, 2009, 8:15 p.m.