TEHRAN: Iran’s leading hardline newspaper, Kayhan, was in court to face defamation charges on Sunday from a number of plaintiffs, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi. An aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the controversial Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, was among the plaintiffs, complaining that the paper had accused him of an “anti-national act.” Ebadi has accused Kayhan of “defamation” and “spreading lies” over its description of her as a “Shiite but Bahai supporter.”