Hamid Nouri's first trial in Albania; one plaintiff and another witness testified

The first trial of Hamid Nouri in Albania began on Wednesday, November 9, and during it, Mohammad Zand, a member of the People's Mojahedin Organization, said as a plaintiff and witness that he saw Hamid Nouri on death row after transferring a number of prisoners to the execution site, wearing blindfolds, which he said were the blindfolds of executed prisoners.

Reza Zand, Mohammad Zand's brother, was executed in 1988 in Gohardasht Prison, Karaj, according to his lawyer in court.

Kenneth Lewis, Mohammad Zand's lawyer, said in the court hearing that he was in a camp near the city of Durres in Albania, had many encounters with Hamid Abbasi (Nouri) in Gohardasht Prison, and had been taken to death row three times.

Hamid Nouri is not present at the Albanian court hearings, and his lawyer is present. He is accused of participating in the mass executions of political prisoners as a former assistant prosecutor 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.

According to the lawyer, a replica or model of Gohardasht Prison will be displayed in the courtroom in the coming days.

Mohammad Zand said at Hamid Nouri's trial that he and his brother were arrested on charges of supporting the People's Mojahedin Organization (PMOI), and that his brother was 21 years old and an electrical engineering student at the time of his arrest.

He said that his brother had been sentenced to ten years in prison, and he himself had been sentenced first to life imprisonment and then to 12 years in prison. Mohammad Zand was released from prison in April 1992 and went to Camp Ashraf.

According to him, on August 26, they stopped newspapers from entering the prison ward, and a day later they took away the ward's television.

According to his brother, during his last meeting with his mother in July 1988, Reza Zand said, "Don't wait for us anymore. We won't get out of here alive. This regime won't let us get out of here alive."

Mohammad Zand said that after his brother's execution, a small bag was delivered to his father in Evin Prison, containing a shirt and a broken watch: "The watch was broken at two o'clock to tell him when my execution was. My father says, 'Why did you execute my son? He had served seven years in prison and was supposed to be released in three years.' They blindfolded my father and took him to prison. They said, 'You have no right to hold a ceremony for your son.' My father says, 'I will hold a ceremony for him, and I will hold a very big ceremony.' He did the same thing and held a big ceremony for my brother Reza."

Mohammad Zand said in Hamid Nouri's trial that from the window he saw Daoud Lashkari with a rope wagon and a handgun tied to his waist, and he was certain that the subject was an execution, and that same day he heard the cry of "Death to the hypocrite" from the sheds below the window.

Mohammad Zand, according to his own account, was transferred to the “corridor of death” by Davud Lashkari on August 5 along with ten to fifteen other people: “Naserian (Mohammad Moghiseh) took me into the death row room and before I sat down, he told me that we have executed your brother and if you do not accept what the board says, we will execute you too. When I took off the blindfold, three people were sitting in front of me. It was (Hossein Ali) Nayiri and two people were sitting to his left and right. It was (Mostafa) Pourmohammadi and (Morteza) Ishraqi, whose names I later learned. Two or three people were standing to their left and right, and I think they were armed.”

Mohammad Zand said about his presence in the death squad room that Hossein Ali Nayiri asked about his characteristics and sentence: "He said, 'Do you want the Imam to pardon you?' I said, 'My sentence is over and I will come out myself.' I asked, 'Why did you execute my brother?' He had served seven years in prison and was due to be released in three years.' He told Naserian, 'Take this guy out.'"

After being transferred to the corridor, he said, he heard the voices of Davud Lashkari, Hamid Abbasi (Nouri), and Naserian (Mohammad Moghiseh), as Hamid Nouri read out a list and took it towards the Husseiniyeh or amphitheater, which was the place of executions.

Mohammad Zand said: "After half an hour, around 11 or 12 o'clock, I saw Hamid Abbasi and Davud Lashkari coming towards us from the same direction on the corridor of death. I was 10 to 15 meters away from them, and Hamid Abbasi had a set of blindfolds in his hand."

He said that he heard Davud Lashkari say that he was going to take a bath and saw that Hamid Abbasi (Nouri) had brought a new list.

Mohammad Zand mentioned a prisoner named Nasser Mansouri and said: "They brought Nasser Mansouri on a stretcher and placed him in front of me. Nasserian (Mohammad Moghiseh) and Hamid Abbasi (Nouri) had pressured him to tell them about the relationships and relationships inside the prison. In order not to give in to this betrayal, he threw himself down from the third floor, where he was in solitary confinement, and his spinal cord was severed. Nasser Mansouri was not moving at all and was just lying there. They took him and a number of others to the same Husseiniyeh, the place of executions."

According to his own account, he was transferred to solitary confinement and on August 8, he was taken to death row again: "There I heard the names being called out by Hamid Abbasi (Nouri). On August 12, Hamid Abbasi (Nouri) was calling out the list again."

On August 12, Mohammad Zand was transferred to death row and the death squad room again: "They said that if you don't accept, we will execute you. Unfortunately, I was not able to have the courage like those kids and defend the identity of the Mujahedin. I was not able to say I was a Mujahedin of the People. They put me back in solitary confinement. The same day or the next day, Nasserian (Mohammad Moghiseh) and Hamid Abbasi came. Nasserian threw some paper and a pen into the cell and said that you must write down all the relationships and relations in your ward. At dinner, four or five guards came and started beating me with fists, kicks, and boots. They were hitting my head against the pipe that was there. This continued for several days so that they could pressure me into giving them the names they wanted."

He said that he was in solitary confinement for three months and was transferred from Gohardasht Prison to Evin Prison in late February.

Mohammad Zandi, in response to the prosecutor's question during Hamid Nouri's trial, said that he recognized Hamid Nouri's voice when he spoke in court: "This voice has remained in my mind. I first saw Hamid Abbasi (Nouri) in Gohardasht Prison in the early winter of 2016. This same Abbasi (Nouri) ordered me to reduce my sentence from life to 12 years."

He said that Hamid Nouri was "slim. He was tall and had a thin beard, he was short, and he wore ordinary clothes like ordinary people. His nose was also similar to mine. Because I have trouble breathing because of the shape of my nose, I get attention when I see someone with a nose like mine."

Mohammad Zand said that after his release from prison, he was a passenger ferry driver and saw Hamid Nouri in Tehran's Azadi Square: "I was a passenger ferry driver. Hamid Abbasi (Nouri) said Karaj. I stopped. He came in front of the car and when he saw me, he regretted it and said he didn't want to. Because he recognized me. I recognized him too."

The prosecutor then showed a picture of Hamid Nouri, and Mohammad Zandi said that this person was Hamid Abbasi (Nouri). I will never forget the nose.

During the court session, lawyer Hamid Nouri said that Mohammad Zandi's words in court did not match what he said during police interrogation. He said that the names Mohammad Zandi mentioned in court were different from the names he gave to the police.

Lawyer Hamid Nouri said to Mohammad Zandi: "You claim that mass executions in prison occurred by hanging. Here you say that you saw a rope being pulled out of the window and heard "Death to the hypocrite." But you didn't tell the police these things. Didn't you think it was important for the police to know?"

Mohammad Zandi replied: "You're right, it was my mistake, I should have said it. But there were questions one after another that I didn't say."

Hamid Nouri's lawyer also said that Mohammad Zandi, in a letter to a human rights organization and also during police interrogation, called Hossein Ali Nayiri's name Jafar Nayiri and Morteza Eshraqi's name Poura Eshraqi.

Mohammad Zandi said: "We knew Nayri by the name Jafar, just like Hamid Nouri by the name Abbasi. I also said Eshraqi as Morteza Pourashraqi, which was a mistake."

He said, "I had told the police that I would remember both the names and the memories later and tell them later."

Mohammad Zandi also said that some of the issues had slipped his mind and then he remembered them, that he had read the Mujahideen book and listened to the previous hearings of Hamid Nouri's trial.

This was his response to lawyer Hamid Nouri, who asked him if he remembered today or if he had read the Mujahideen book.

Hamid Nouri has denied the charges. He is scheduled to testify in court on December 2. According to his lawyer, Hamid Nouri's position is that "these executions never happened and he cannot accept the charges."

Hamid Nouri's lawyer claims that his client was on leave due to the birth of his child at the time of the executions in August and September 1988.

The trial of Hamid Nouri, which will continue until April next year in the Stockholm court in Sweden, has also prompted a reaction from the Islamic Republic's authorities.

Saeed Khatibzadeh, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, called Mr. Nouri's trial "a design by a small group of hypocrites" on September 1, claiming that the Swedish court "based on a series of stories, documentation, and false witness statements, all carried out by a small group."

Source: Radio Farda