Report on Thirteenth Session of Hamid Nouri Trial; One of the Complainants: The Defendant Beat Me Four Times

The thirteenth session of the trial of Hamid Nouri, accused of participating in the executions of summer 1988, was held on Wednesday, September 8 (September 8) with testimony from Siamak Naderi, a former prisoner and one of the complainants and witnesses in this case.

Siamak Naderi was arrested on September 26, 1981 on charges of supporting the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization, providing financial assistance of 10 tomans, and selling several publications of that organization. He was sentenced to seven years in prison without a defense lawyer.

At Wednesday’s session, Mr. Naderi testified that the executions began in the “bakery” of the prison but were moved to the “Husayniyyah” due to space limitations in the bakery. Siamak Naderi, in comparison with previous witnesses and using maps from Iraj Mesdaghi’s book, provided more detailed explanations of Gohardasht Prison, the wards, the Husayniyyah, and its buildings.

He said he spent most of his sentence in quarantine and solitary cells and therefore had not seen and did not know many people.

The witness named Nassirian as the prison warden and Hamid Nouri as the judicial deputy and his enforcement arm. He explained that Hamid Nouri was responsible for making noise, making notes, and directing prisoners from cells to the corridor of death and to the death tribunal. Pointing to Nouri, he said Abbasi is the same person sitting in court today.

Siamak Naderi testified that his first meeting with Hamid Nouri was in the fall of 1987. He said that at that time he was beaten by a Revolutionary Guard accompanying him. He also said he witnessed Nassirian and Hamid Nouri’s raid on ward 8 on the seventh of Mordad, one day before the executions began, and saw that the two of them, along with acts of violence, searched their belongings.

He said he was beaten a total of four times by Hamid Nouri and was taken to the “dark room.” Naderi said prisoners in solitary cells were taken to the dark room for punishment purposes and were imprisoned without light, toilet, and clothing with only underwear.

Naderi testified about the events of the eighth of Mordad that Hamid Nouri took his cellmate named Mostafa Babaei with him and Babaei never returned. He also testified that on the same day, a political prisoner named Zahra Khosravi, using Morse code signals, informed them of their imminent executions.

The witness said about himself that he was before the death tribunal for between 3 to 5 minutes and was saved from execution by writing expressions of disgust toward the Mujahedin organization and Iraq. Siamak Naderi also testified about the executions of prisoners whose names, according to him, he had sent abroad along with the names of some of the bereaved before leaving Iran.

The prosecutor asked Siamak Naderi to explain his observations after leaving the death tribunal to the court. At this point, the witness was affected for a few minutes and cried, then said: “In a refrigerated container, I saw dark blue and olive-colored tarps. They were stacked in about three layers that were the bodies of children. A Revolutionary Guard was walking on the bodies… After that it was the month of Muharram when we had no executions for ten days.”

Naderi, in response to a question from the defendant’s defense lawyer about the place and time when he first saw Nouri’s photo and also details of his conversations with Iraj Mesdaghi and Hamid Nouri’s responsibility in the prison, again explained that in 1988, when he was still a member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization, he sent all this information to human rights organizations and has always testified that Hamid Abbasi (Nouri) was the prison judicial deputy.

The fourteenth session of the Hamid Nouri trial will be held on Thursday, September 9 (September 9), and Siamak Naderi will return to court to continue his testimony and continue answering questions from the defendant’s defense lawyers. Mohsen Ishaghi will also be a witness at the fourteenth session of the trial.

Source: Voice of America