65th Trial of Hamid Nouri; Witness: By releasing some prisoners, the government intended to say that there are no "political prisoners"

The 65th trial session of Hamid Nouri, accused of participating in the summer 2018 executions, was held on Monday, February 14, 2021, with the continuation of Jafar Yaqoubi's testimony, in absentia and via video from his residence in the United States.

Jafar Yaqoubi testified in the previous session that he was arrested in Tehran in the fall of 1984 and sentenced to fifteen years in prison a year later on charges of membership in the People's Devotees Organization, opposition to the Islamic Republic, and having an alias.

Jafar Yaqoubi said in his first testimony session on Friday last week, 11th of Bahman 1400, that after the executions in November 1988, "Dadiar Abbasi" told him at the Gohardasht Prison's courthouse that "you've escaped [the execution] well."

At the beginning of the second session today, Jafar Yaqoubi, in response to the prosecutor's question about the defendant's intention in making such a statement, said that given the severity of his sentence, "Mr. Abbasi" was upset that he was alive. He said that Abbasi (Nouri) considered it his right to be executed.

In court today, Jafar Yaqoubi, looking directly at Hamid Nouri, officially confirmed his identity to court officials, saying that he has the same posture and sitting posture, only he has become a little thinner and older. The witness also confirmed the identities of some of the death row prisoners listed in the court's indictment, such as Abolghasem Soleimanpour, Mahmoud Alizadeh Azami, and Bijan Bazargan.

Daniel Marcus, one of Nouri's defense lawyers, this time, in accordance with the policy adopted by Nouri's defense team, tried to highlight discrepancies in the witness's statements, especially regarding the date of the events, by comparing the Swedish police's interrogation of the witness and his testimony in court.

Daniel Marcus also tried to prove, as always, by asking questions about when and how the witness learned of Hamid Nouri’s arrest, that this witness’s testimony – like many other witnesses in this trial – was influenced by the statements and memoirs of prisoners such as Iraj Mosdaghi and Mehdi Aslani, as well as how and when the witness learned of Hamid Nouri’s arrest. It should be noted that Iraj Mosdaghi is one of the prisoners who survived those executions and played a key role in Hamid Nouri’s arrest in Sweden. Iraj Mosdaghi himself is also one of the witnesses and plaintiffs in this case.

Jafar Yaqoubi also responded to the prosecutor's question about why he was released ten and a half years early from the end of his sentence in March 2018, by saying that the Islamic Republic government had killed a large number of prisoners and by releasing the rest, it intended to advertise that it had no political prisoners.

It is worth noting that Jafar Yaqoubi said in his first testimony that he was brought before the death squad, including Nayri and Ishraqi, on September 10. He claimed to be a Muslim and, after enduring 30 lashes in the prison amphitheater, agreed to pray.

Two books of memoirs by Jafar Yaqoubi, entitled "Let's Water the Flowers" in English and the two volumes of "The Unknown Boundaries of Death and Life," are on the list of written documents of the Nouri trial. In his book, the witness specifically identified Abbasi as "Hamid Nouri."