Appeals Court: Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi Sentenced to 16 Years Imprisonment
Horana News Agency – Mostafa Neili, a lawyer, announced the confirmation of the sentence for Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi, arrested students at Sharif University of Technology, by Branch 36 of Tehran Province’s Court of Appeals. These two students, who remain detained at the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention facility known as Ward 209 in Evin Prison, were previously sentenced to 16 years imprisonment each in the primary court. With the application of Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code, the maximum penalty of 10 years for each will be enforceable.
According to Horana News Agency, citing Emtedad, Mostafa Neili, a lawyer, announced the confirmation of the primary court’s sentence for Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi in the Court of Appeals.
The lawyer stated in this regard: “Branch 36 of Tehran’s Court of Appeals, located in the Revolutionary Court, exactly confirmed the primary court’s sentence for Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi. These two distinguished students of Sharif University were sentenced in the primary court to 10 years imprisonment for destruction, 5 years for gathering and conspiracy with the intent to act against national security, and 1 year for propaganda against the system. The Court of Appeals exactly confirmed this sentence, and based on this; the maximum penalty, namely 10 years imprisonment, will be enforceable.”
According to him, “This is while there were objections that we referenced in our appeal petitions. One of the most important discussions is a procedural objection regarding the change in the charge description, where the procedural rules of the Criminal Procedure Code were not observed in the primary court. However, the Court of Appeals also ignored this matter and confirmed the verdict exactly.”
Neili continued: “We will pursue retrial at the Supreme Court in subsequent stages. Given the confirmation of the verdict, the next action is to discuss retrial at the Supreme Court, which we will pursue in subsequent stages. We also hope that with the issuance of a final verdict in the case, our clients will be removed from the security ward 209.”
Mostafa Neili added: “These two young men have been imprisoned in security ward 209 for more than two years, and we hope that with the issuance of the final verdict, at least Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi will be transferred out of this ward and moved to a general ward.”
Ali Younesi, a computer engineering student, and Amirhossein Moradi, a physics student at Sharif University of Technology, were arrested on April 11, 2020 by Ministry of Intelligence agents and transferred to the ministry’s detention facility known as Ward 209 in Evin Prison. It is reported that the arrest of these students was carried out by plainclothes agents without presenting a court order and accompanied by beatings.
Gholamhossein Esmaili, spokesman for Iran’s judiciary, accused these students on May 6, 2020 of collaborating with one of the opposition groups (People’s Mujahedin).
Shortly thereafter, Aida Younesi, Ali Younesi’s sister, released a video on social media refuting these accusations and attributed the reason for raising them to her parents’ imprisonment history in the 1980s.
It is worth recalling that Amirhossein Moradi is the winner of the silver medal of the National Astronomy Olympiad in 2017 and Ali Younesi is the winner of the silver medal of the National Astronomy Olympiad in 2016 and the gold medal of the Astronomy Olympiad in 2017. Furthermore, Ali Younesi won the gold medal in the twelfth International Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad held in China and achieved first place.
Source: Horana
