Eighty-Fourth Session of Hamid Nouri’s Court: “They Promised Us Forty Days of Paradise for Killing You”

The eighty-fourth session of the court trial of Hamid Nouri, accused of participation in the execution of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 at Gohardasht Prison, was held on the 18th of Farvardin 1401 (April 7, 2022) with the testimony of Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee in Stockholm.

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee was first arrested at the age of fifteen during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah. He was arrested for a second time after the revolution in 1360 (1981) in Qom and sentenced to death, but escaped in 1362 (1983) when he was on furlough.

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee was a member of the Workers’ Path Organization and in June 1362 (1983), while transferring some organizational internal documents, he was surrounded, shot and wounded, and arrested for the third time. The witness was transferred to Evin Prison by the joint committee after one and a half months and was kept standing handcuffed for eleven nights upon arrival. Two years later, he was sentenced to death for a second time in a trial presided over by Niri at Evin Prison. In the same trial, he was informed of his brother’s execution. The witness’s death sentence was later commuted to fifteen years imprisonment.

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee was transferred to Gohardasht Prison in 1345 (1966) while participating in a collective hunger strike with two or three hundred other prisoners and was immediately severely beaten. He was later transferred to Ward 14; a ward located between wards 5 and 6 that allowed communication with these wards and observation of the prison grounds through windows.

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee testified that [their ward] learned on the 5th of Mordad 1367 (July 26, 1988) via morse code of the presence of the death committee in the prison. He confirmed hearing sermons by Rafsanjani and later by Mousavi Ardabili during two separate Friday prayers and slogans against the Mujahedin through prison loudspeakers. He said television was removed from the ward and newspaper distribution was stopped. The witness also confirmed the cutting off of visits in Mordad 1347 (July-August 1988) at Gohardasht Prison.

On the 9th or 10th of Shahrivar (August 31 – September 1, 1988), Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee, blindfolded along with several cellmates who were all Marxists, was interrogated by Lashkari in the presence of Nasserian. The witness was then led with a group of cellmates to the corridor of death. He testified that while in the corridor of death he heard officers say: “Take this one to the left, take this one to the right.”

After several hours, without the blindfold, he was brought before the death committee, including Niri and Eshragi, and said he did not pray and was not Muslim.

After leaving the death committee’s room, Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee received fifty lashes and was taken to a dark hall which he later understood was an amphitheater. There, from under his blindfold, he saw several flip-flops and clothes on the floor and six hanging nooses from the ceiling. The witness was taken that day to a closed room. Hearing people talking and a truck, he moved to the window. He saw people wearing white clothing similar to pesticide spraying uniforms throwing bags wrapped in blankets into the truck.

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee was brought before the death committee again the next day. The witness explained how, by accepting obedience to society’s laws if released on one hand and through Eshragi’s mediation with Niri on the other, he escaped execution. After leaving the room, he and several other prisoners were beaten so severely that his ribs were broken. He remembers a prisoner named Tafarshi who was probably killed from the severity of the beating. The witness said another prisoner’s head split open from being struck against a radiator. One of the guards told them: “They promised us forty days of paradise for killing you.”

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee testified that after this severe beating he was transferred to a cell and heard two guards talking in the corridor. From their voices, he recognized guard Adel, the manager of the prison shop who sometimes frequented their ward.

Adel asks the other guard: “I have a religious question. These girls that we bring down from the [noose], they turn blue and it’s clear they’re suffocating and according to Islamic law they must be married before execution. Do you think this is correct? I’ve been asked about it.”

The guard responds to Adel: “The hajj agha knows all this himself and they have ordered it. If necessary, you should ask them. But they definitely have an answer for this [question].”

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee later, in explaining what he heard and in response to questions from Count Lewis, one of the legal advisors for the complainants in the case, testified that in his opinion, the women prisoners referred to were female Mujahedin prisoners, and he had not heard of such things regarding leftist women.

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee said that in the following days, a young cleric tried to teach prayer to prisoners saved from execution. Nasserian, Lashkari, and a “man in civilian clothes” along with several guards visited their ward in the following days and forced prisoners with threats and intimidation to pray.

Two or three weeks later, Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee was taken by a guard to the prison prosecutor’s office and to “Hajj Agha Abbasi.” Hajj Agha Abbasi was the same “man in civilian clothes” whom the witness had encountered several times without a blindfold before—for example, once when the ward’s television was being removed—but no one had ever introduced him. Abbasi informed him that he would be transferred to Evin Prison. The witness said Abbasi’s smile that day remained in his memory. The witness said a man entered the room and Abbasi stood up respectfully in front of him. The witness said that man was Amin Vaziri, head of the strike force, whom the witness had seen during his arrest in 1362 (1983).

Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee was transferred that day by private car to Evin Prison and was released from prison in Farvardin 1368 (March-April 1989).

In today’s session, Abdolreza Shahab Shokohee named Sadegh Riahi, Jafar Riahi, Mohammad Ali Pejman, Mostafa Farhadi, Hossein Haji Mohsen, and Majid Eivani as “those commemorated” whom he can confirm were executed in 1367 (1988) at Gohardasht Prison either personally or through intermediaries. In today’s session, the legal advisors of the defendant addressed discrepancies between the witness’s testimony today and his interviews with Swedish police over the past two years.

The subsequent sessions of Hamid Nouri’s court will resume on Wednesday, the 31st of Farvardin 1401 (April 20, 2022), with approximately a two-week break due to Easter holidays. This session has been allocated for questioning Hamid Nouri at the request of his lawyers. Thomas Sander, the court judge, formally announced in today’s court session that no defendant has ever been given as much time and opportunity for defense.

Source: Voice of America