The 61st Trial of Hamid Nouri: The Return of the "Empty Minibuses" After the Execution of Prisoners Was Very Painful

The 61st trial session of Hamid Nouri, accused of participating in the summer 1988 executions at Gohardasht Prison, was held on Monday, February 24, 1402, with the first hearing of the testimony of Amir Hooshang Atyabi, a leftist prisoner who survived those executions.

Amir Hooshang Atyabi, a student expelled in 1980, was arrested in March 1983 for his activities in the Tudeh Party of Iran. The witness was severely tortured with a cable from the very beginning in the basement of Ward 209 of Evin Prison. He was transferred to a hospital adjacent to Ward 209 in a critical condition and with many problems, such as bloody urine and blackened legs up to the knees. The witness said that after being hospitalized for a week with his body bandaged, he was tortured with a cable again in that basement. This time, he was hospitalized for another week in a state of shock and convulsions.

Amir Hooshang Atyabi was sentenced in a short trial a year after his arrest, but it took another year for his ten-year prison sentence to be communicated to him. In late 1985, Amir Hooshang Atyabi was transferred from Evin Prison to the quarantine ward of Qezl-e-Hazar Prison and in early 1986 to Gohardasht Prison.

Among the documents that Amir Hooshang Atyabi previously presented to the court are a list containing information on 96 left-wing prisoners executed in Ward 20 of Gohardasht Prison and an interview with the Iranian Human Rights Documentation Center in 2009. Other documents include a map of Gohardasht Prison drawn by the witness. Among the documents is a calendar from 1988, in which the important events of the execution period were recorded daily by the witness in a coded manner in prison, using symbols, and later completed after his release.

Amir Hooshang Atyabi testified that he personally, along with several other prisoners, overheard a group discussing the Imam's ruling, the circumstances surrounding its implementation, and the method of execution.

Amir Hooshang Atyabi said that seeing two photos of Hamid Nouri after his arrest did not evoke anything for him, because for him there were more important people. The witness said that in the first prison he saw Mortazavi, who was short, thin, and dressed in clerical garb. He later encountered Naserian and Lashkari. He said that he was in charge of Ward One at one time and once met with Lashkari to discuss ward issues. He said that Naserian was the prison’s handyman, and Lashkari was more responsible for managing the IRGC, prison security, and events inside the prison.

Amir Hooshang Atyabi testified that he personally witnessed, through the tampered shutters in the prison bathroom, the bodies of executed prisoners being carried by the IRGC from the prison’s Hosseiniyeh into refrigerated trucks and an open truck and then transported outside the prison. Atyabi witnessed the IRGC walking over the bodies, grabbing the hands and feet of the executed, and moving them. Atyabi’s diary at Gohardasht Prison states that the work of carrying the bodies continued two to three times a day for twelve days.

Amir Hoshang Atyabi testified that according to what he had heard and seen, the death squad had been present at Gohardasht Prison since August 28, and the executions of the Mujahideen began that day and ended on August 15, 1988. Atyabi witnessed the transportation of prisoners by minibuses two to three times a day during the first phase of the executions. He said that it was very painful to see the minibuses filled with prisoners and their transfer to the Husseiniyeh and the empty minibuses returning. Amir Hoshang Atyabi testified that the second phase of the executions began on September 28, 1988, focusing on the execution of leftist prisoners. He said that a group of IRGC soldiers stormed the prison and told the prisoners to leave their cells. They took all the prisoners out of the prison without preparation or even slippers.

Amir Hooshang Atyabi was twice brought before a death squad by Nasserian, consisting of Ishraqi, the Attorney General of the Islamic Revolution, and Nayri, the Sharia judge, and another person he did not know. The witness was flogged twice—in the morning and at night—for not praying. He was eventually saved from execution by declaring himself a Muslim and declaring his innocence of the Tudeh organization.

Amir Hooshang Atyabi – at the end of the executions – was transferred to Evin Prison in February 1988 and later released.

According to the official announcement of the court judge, another session to continue Amir Hooshang Atyabi's testimony will be scheduled in the future and will be notified to him.

The 61st session of Hamid Nouri's trial was held while the Islamic Republic officially reacted to the trial in recent weeks - after more than two years - by broadcasting reports on Mizan, the judiciary's news agency.

In these reports, the Iranian judiciary called Hamid Nouri a "simple employee" who was kidnapped, beaten several times, and is being tried in Sweden without free access to a lawyer, the right to meet with his family, and even without reading glasses.

These claims come despite the fact that Hamid Nouri, according to Swedish law, had access to a lawyer after his arrest at Stockholm airport. Nouri even thanked his lawyers during his defense hearings and said that he agreed with everything they said.

Nouri's family, including his wife, children, and son-in-law, were present in the courtroom during his trial sessions—particularly the six initial defense sessions in early December 1402—and were introduced to the court members one by one by him. In addition to his glasses, he also had a tablet with him during the court sessions.

The next court session will be held on Tuesday, February 25, 2022, with the testimony of Mansour Kamalzadeh in the Stockholm Courthouse in Sweden.

Source: Voice of America