Sixth Hearing of Hamid Nouri’s Trial; Masadaqi: They Took Us to the Execution Ground of Our Friends

The sixth hearing of Hamid Nouri’s trial, who is accused of participating in the summer 1988 executions, was held on Monday, September 1st in Stockholm, Sweden.

Eiraj Masadaqi, a political prisoner at Gohardasht Prison in Karaj at the time of the executions and one of the plaintiffs in the case, was the first witness since the trial began to answer the prosecutor’s questions about the reasons for his arrest, interrogation, torture, and trial in prison.

Masadaqi is the author of several books of prison memoirs, which are among 65 written documents included in the prosecutor’s indictment.

Eiraj Masadaqi addressed the location, sections, and conditions of different prison buildings, the duties and roles of prison staff and Revolutionary Guards personnel, and their presence during the time of executions in Gohardasht Prison; including the condition of Hall Four of Gohardasht Prison, which according to him was where left-wing prisoners were held at that time.

Masadaqi said Hall Four had been emptied of left-wing prisoners during the months of October and November 1988, because they had all been executed. To prove his point, he referred to the arrest and transfer of sex workers and their children after the demolition of the Qaleh neighborhood in Tehran to this empty hall.

Masadaqi described how arrested sex workers were beaten by prison guards for singing songs along with their children.

Masadaqi spoke about the prison’s Husseiniyeh and that after the 1988 massacre, on the occasion of February 11th of that year, they were allowed to have in-person visits in the Husseiniyeh. He said: “They took us to meet our families at the execution ground of our friends. I pointed out Hamid Nouri and Nasarian to my mother and grandmother and said these are the ones who killed our children here. I told my mother that many mothers are now outside and their children were killed here, and today you see me here. Right there I made a covenant with myself not to forget this event, and that is why I am here today. That is why I tried to bring Hamid Nouri before the justice system, and that is why I asked the Swedish judicial system to carry out justice.”

Before that, Hamid Nouri’s defense lawyers, like in the previous court session, analyzed some of the books and memoirs of survivors that were submitted as evidence in the prosecutor’s indictment.

The defense lawyers also, while analyzing the list of names of the executed mentioned in the indictment, claimed that these lists are unclear from where, by whom, and how they were written and prepared. Hamid Nouri’s defense lawyer said that given the ambiguous and contradictory nature of the names of individuals, Hamid Nouri does not accept the list of names of executed persons and books as evidence in this trial.

Hamid Nouri’s defense lawyer said his client claims that these executions never happened. The defense lawyer had also stated in the previous session that Nouri was on leave during the executions.

Saeid Khatibzadeh, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, on Monday called Nouri’s detention “illegal” and confirmed that Iran’s ambassador to Sweden is following up on the matter. He said: “We are using all our diplomatic tools to uphold Nouri’s rights.”

Ahmad Masoumi Far, Iran’s ambassador to Sweden, also said on Sunday, without mentioning Nouri by name, that after 20 days of effort he has finally succeeded in meeting with one of the Iranian citizens in a Swedish prison. He announced that he is demanding independent investigations into the violation of this prisoner’s rights due to the use of violence against him.

According to the schedule, the next hearing of Hamid Nouri’s trial, the seventh hearing, will be on Wednesday, September 3rd, dedicated to continuing to hear testimony and questions and answers from prosecutors and defense lawyers for Eiraj Masadaqi as the first witness and plaintiff in the case.

According to information contained in the indictment, Hamid Nouri, known as Hamid Abbasi, during the months of July and September 1988, during the mass execution of political prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, was a clerk and assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the time – Mohammad Mogisseh, under the pseudonym Nasarian. He is accused of, in collaboration and consultation with other defendants and perpetrators of the 1988 summer massacre, intentionally taking the lives of many political prisoners, mostly members or supporters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization of Iran, as well as members of left-wing groups and other groups.

Under Swedish law, the maximum punishment for Hamid Nouri in case of conviction will be life imprisonment.

This case is not only important from the perspective of human rights dimensions, but the arrest and trial of Hamid Nouri in the court of another country is one of the important political events in the history of Iran, especially in the history of Iran’s justice-seeking movement.

Source: Voice of America