By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

A hard-line court Saturday outlawed Iran's leading reform-minded opposition party — the Freedom Movement — and gave its leaders jail terms of up to 10 years and fines of more than $6,000.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said the Tehran Revolutionary Court also banned the party's leaders and members from any political activity for 10 years.

Thirty-three party leaders received jail terms ranging from four months to 10 years, while eight others were ordered to pay fines of up to $6,250. Eleven were acquitted, according to the agency.

The court also dissolved parties close to the Freedom Movement, the agency said without elaborating.

The Freedom Movement leaders were convicted of "acting against national security for the purpose of overthrowing the establishment ... having contacts with foreigners, including diplomats of foreign countries, propagating against the Islamic republic through public speeches, collecting classified information and insulting the authorities," IRNA reported.

The verdicts, which can be appealed within 20 days, come months after about two dozen members of the party were tried behind closed doors.

Responding to Saturday's verdicts, party leader Ebrahim Yazdi told The Associated Press that they were both "unconstitutional and politically motivated."

"According to the constitution, political crimes and party violations shall be investigated in a general court openly and attended by a jury," he said.

Since the revolutionary court's conducted the trial behind closed doors and without a jury, he added, "this court is then simply incompetent to issue such a verdict."

He said Iran's Intelligence Ministry didn't agree with the court's charges that his party was seeking to topple the Islamic establishment. Yazdi was being treated for cancer in the United States when party members were arrested in March 2000.

Hashem Sabbaqian, who served as interior minister in the provisional government that took office after the 1979 Islamic revolution, got the maximum sentence of 10 years in jail.

"I was not surprised with the verdict. The whole procedure was illegal from the very beginning," said Sabbaqian, adding that the decision was aimed solely at cracking down on the Freedom Movement.

"My lawyer has also illegally been told not to talk about the verdict," Sabbaqian told the AP Saturday.

The Freedom Movement of Iran opposes the country's 23-year-old clerical rule, rejects violence and seeks democratic changes within the establishment. Established in 1961, the party took charge of the country's provisional government after the 1979 Islamic revolution but Mahdi Bazargan, its leader at the time, resigned in protest against the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.