Initial verdicts announced in environmental activists case
Twenty-two months after their arrest and months of uncertainty, the Revolutionary Court sentenced six environmental activists to a total of 48 years in prison. It was announced that the verdicts for Saman Rajabi and Abdolreza Koohpaaye will be announced next week.
Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court, under the presidency of Judge Solevati, has sentenced six of eight defendants in the environmental case to sentences ranging from six to ten years in prison. Niloofar Bayani and Morad Tahbaz, the first and second defendants in the case, have been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. Taher Qadriyarian and Homan Jokar received eight years each, while Amir Hossein Khaleghi and Sepideh Kashani each received six-year sentences.
According to the ISNA news agency, the verdicts for Saman Rajabi and Alireza Koohpaaye, two other defendants in the case, will be announced to their lawyers next week.
Niloofar Bayani, a graduate of biology from McGill University who worked at the United Nations in Geneva, has been sentenced under the issued verdict, in addition to ten years in prison, to “forfeiture of earnings from six years of work at the United Nations.”
The closed-door trial of these environmental activists began in winter 2018. The Organization of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Intelligence have denied espionage charges against them, but the spokesperson of the Judiciary, on October 12, referred to Morad Tahbaz, Niloofar Bayani and Homan Jokar as “defendants in the espionage case involving gathering intelligence from sensitive military centers under the guise of environmental activities” and announced their summoning to present their final defense statements.
These defendants were arrested by the Sepah Intelligence Organization in February 2017 and spent 22 months in detention and legal limbo. They initially faced charges of “espionage” and “corruption on earth,” with the Ministry of Intelligence and the Sepah Intelligence Organization disagreeing over the matter.
Kavous Seyed-Emami, one of the detained individuals in this case, died under suspicious circumstances two weeks after the group’s arrest in prison, with the cause of death announced as “suicide.”
Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, had ordered in recent weeks that the case of these individuals be referred to the Supreme National Security Council. Khamenei’s office had previously stated in response to requests from the defendants’ families that it would not intervene in the matter.
Gholamhossein Esmaili, the spokesperson of the Judiciary, stated that the aforementioned verdicts were issued after 36 court sessions and that the first instance court verdict is subject to appeal. He said the defendants received sentences ranging from 4 to 10 years. Based on the announced verdicts for the first six defendants, the 4-year prison sentence likely belongs to Saman Rajabi and Abdolreza Koohpaaye.
The defendants and their defense lawyers have 20 days to appeal the issued verdict.
Source: DW
