New court hearing for Hamid Nouri; partial recovery of deleted data from his cell phone

The 86th trial session of Hamid Nouri, a former assistant prosecutor during the summer 2018 executions, was held on Thursday, May 1, with an extraordinary interrogation session of the defendant, and the subject of most of the session was related to the phone numbers deleted from the defendant's cell phone.

The interrogation session was held at the request of prosecutors in the case due to the presentation to the court of audio and video evidence known as "Protocol 16." This evidence had been deleted from Hamid Nouri's mobile phone the night before the flight, but Swedish experts have managed to recover some of it.

The phone numbers deleted from the defendant's phone included several numbers belonging to the bodyguards of Mohammad Moghiseh, known as "Naserian." Explaining this, the defendant said: "Moghiseh was my boss. They assigned bodyguards to him so that he wouldn't be assassinated. I don't have the numbers of Moghiseh and Naserian, my dear boss. He didn't give them to me... because I gave his phone to everyone. He realized that I gave his phone to everyone. He changed two of his mobile phone lines and didn't give them to me anymore. When his bodyguards came, I would call his bodyguards. I was smarter than him."

The name of Mohammad Moghiseh was heard many times in the Nouri court from witnesses and plaintiffs as one of the most important factors in the torture and execution of political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Hamid Nouri remembers him with great respect.

Hamid Nouri also gave similar explanations regarding the phone list of the bodyguards of Hossein Ali Nayiri, the then Sharia judge during the executions of the summer of 2018, saying: "There was a possibility of his assassination. I would have taken the phone numbers of his bodyguards. Because he wouldn't give me his own phone number."

Hamid Nouri is accused of participating in the mass executions of political prisoners at Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, a charge he denies. He arrived at Stockholm Airport on November 9, 2019, on a direct flight from Iran, and was immediately arrested.

Hamid Nouri, who, according to the plaintiffs, was the former deputy prosecutor of Gohardasht Prison during the executions, had claimed in previous court hearings that he had been in Evin Prison from 1982 to 1993 and had called the reports about the executions in the summer of 1988 "a completely imaginary, illusory, fabricated, and undocumented story."

Hamid Nouri, who, according to the plaintiffs, was the former deputy prosecutor of Gohardasht Prison during the executions of the summer of 2018, also said in his 86th court session in Sweden that "we only granted leave to those who repented in prison; those who had changed their position and repented."

“They would cooperate with us, and we would give them time off,” he explained.

The next court hearing is scheduled for May 25 in Stockholm.

Source: Radio Farda