In November 2019, the Iranian bureaucrat Hamid Noury lands at Arlanda in Stockholm – lured there by promises of luxury cruises, women and alcohol. Minutes later, he is arrested by Swedish police. Today, the 61-year-old was sentenced to life in prison in Stockholm District Court – for murder and war crimes. What happened between July and September 1988 is considered one of the darkest chapters in modern Iranian history, which those in power will not touch or talk about. And where no one – until today – has been held accountable. Went for enemies of the regime – I witnessed hundreds of murders. It is a miracle that I survived, Iraj Mesdaghi told SVT. For 10 years he was in and out of Iran’s most notorious prisons. Iraj Mesdaghi was one of around 70 people from different parts of Europe, the USA and Australia, who have testified in Stockholm District Court. There they told about what happened during the brutal months in 1988. Several thousand political prisoners were put on so-called death commissions. Through interrogations, the commissions were to test the prisoners’ loyalty to the religious clergy regime. Those who “stroked” were hanged. According to witnesses, the prisoners were hung five and six on the width of temporary hangers. Both cranes and light chairs were used. In prison roofs, hooks were mounted in a row. The bodies were dumped in unmarked mass graves. Many families were never told what had happened. No one knows exactly how many were killed, but the estimate for Amnesty International is around 5,000 people. The order for the executions came from the highest echelons, from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was Iran’s undisputed leader after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. And the one who gave the order to execute the political prisoners. Here, Khomeini is depicted on May 13, 1988, just before the fatwa that led to the prison massacres. Photo: Sayaad / AP Many of those killed were very young Many of those executed were young and belonged to the resistance group Folkets Mujahedin or other left-wing groups. Facts about the Mujahedin of the People The Mujahedin of the People (Mujahedin-e Khalq) was formed as an Islamic-Marxist group in Iran in the 1960s and has over the years used a number of names and abbreviations. The group is led by Maryam Rajavi, after her husband Masud Rajavi disappeared without a trace in 2003. He is wanted by Iraq for crimes against humanity. According to Norwegian and international experts, there is an extreme culture of obedience in the movement, which has little or no support in Iran. In the 1970s, MeK was behind several attacks and assassinations against American targets in Iran. In 1979, they helped bring Ayatollah Khomeini to power, but later smoked with him and continued their actions until they were forced into exile and settled in Iraq. In the 1980s, they fought on Iraq’s side in the war against Iran, and in the 1990s, they helped Saddam Hussein put down Kurdish and Shia Muslim uprisings in Iraq. The group was long on both the US list of terrorist organizations, but after extensive lobbying succeeded in being removed from the list in 2012. The group is currently based in Albania, after being expelled from Iraq in 2013. Many former supporters and members have recent decades broken with the group and believes the previous political movement has become a sect. Source: NTB The Marxist-inspired movement had worked with the ultra-religious, in an attempt to overthrow the country’s longtime ruler, Shah Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. But already the year after it succeeded in 1979, the two environments smoked indistinctly. During the war against neighboring Iraq, the Mujahedin of the People chose to fight on the side of Iraq, to undermine the clerical regime. As the eight-year war drew to a close, Khomeini ordered the execution of all prisoners who were members of the People’s Mujahedin or sympathetic to the movement. The same with other secular prisoners who were not faithful to the Islamic Republic. Heard the friends were called to death – We all thought we were going to die, Nasrullah Marandi told the Swedish news agency TT. Like Iraj Mesdaghi, he was in the Gohardasht prison outside Tehran, testifying against the 61-year-old Iranian. Those who survived the summer of 1988 have for years collected names and pictures of fellow prisoners who were not as lucky. Photo: Stina Stjernkvist / tt / NTB He says that 10-12 names were called out in groups and taken to a hall that was next door to the corridor. There the prisoners met death. He still remembers how friends were picked up in the middle of the night. He knew he would most likely never see them again. The man who was convicted today in Stockholm District Court is said to have been a lawyer in Gohardasht prison. According to witnesses, he was involved in selecting the prisoners to be brought before the death commission in the capital, Tehran. He will also be one of those who called the prisoners, when their fate was sealed. Those who came alive from it have told how prison guards and prison management celebrated the executions by eating cake in front of the prisoners’ eyes. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the courthouse in Stockholm when the trial began on August 10. Several held up photos of family members or friends who were killed. Photo: Tt News Agency / Reuters Claims they have taken the wrong man 110 names were listed as murder victims in the many thousands of pages of court documents in the trial that started in August and ended in May. The 110 killings are what Swedish investigators believe they can directly link to the Iranian bureaucrat. The killings are said to have taken place between July 30 and August 16. The Iranian himself claims that the Swedish police have taken the wrong man. He claimed in court that he worked in another prison and that he also had leave in the summer of 1988. – I hope these hands will be washed clean – with the help of God, the Iranian said after his testimony in the district court and kept around the Koran. Iraj Mesdaghi becomes one of the key witnesses in the case against the 60-year-old Iranian, who is charged with murder and war crimes. He was also central in the attempts to get the man to Sweden. Photo: Stefan Jerrevång / tt / NTB The lure to Sweden with women and alcohol Iraj Mesdaghi is in no doubt. He believes it is the right man who has sat on the indictment bench. – I myself sat in the “death corridor” and saw him there many, many times, he has told SVT. A total of 50 people singled out Hamid Noury in court. Some said they recognized him by his voice and said they would never forget the voice that called their friends to death. Others remembered the face that ordered the torture of fellow prisoners and themselves. One of the witnesses describes the accused as “very brutal”. When Iraj Mesdaghi heard in 2019 that the former prison lawyer was considering coming to Sweden, he allied himself with other exiled Iranians and family members of the man. The Swedish documentary filmmaker Nina Sarvestani told SVT that they enticed him with the opportunities for parties, women and alcohol. They booked flights and hotels and documented everything on film. Nina Sarvestani’s brother was one of those who died in the summer of 1988. Collected documents from 32 prisons Mesdaghi, together with other human rights activists, ex-prisoners and survivors, has collected documentation. The goal has been to prove what happened, who participated in the executions and who were judges in the so-called death commissions. It has been an extensive work. According to human rights groups, the executions took place in 32 different prisons. Mesdaghi enlisted the help of British-Iranian human rights lawyer Kaveh Moussavi to systematize the documentation of the Gohardasht prison. The documents were sent to Swedish police and prosecutors, along with the tip that the man was on his way to Sweden and what day he arrived. The Swedish judicial authorities believed that the documentation led to an arrest. As soon as the man had set foot on Swedish soil, he was arrested. The Swedes used so-called universal jurisdiction. This means that a person who has committed war crimes can be arrested in another country. Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in as Iran’s new president on August 3. He belongs to the conservative part of the clergy. Participation in the death commissions has cast shadows over his career. Photo: Atta Kenare / AFP Participated in secret death commission The case in Stockholm has been followed with an arguing eye in Iran. Iranian authorities have protested the trial and the Swedish ambassador to Tehran has been on the carpet. What happened in 1988 cast a long shadow over Ebrahim Raisi, the man who became Iranian president last year. Raisi has for many years been accused of being part of one of the secret death commissions. Facts about Ebrahim Raisi Born in 1960 in Iran’s largest city Mashhad, which houses the country’s largest Shia shrine. His father died when he was five years old. Followed in his father’s footsteps and began as a 15-year-old at a Shia Muslim seminary in the holy city of Qom. Wears a black turban, which in Shia priests is associated with descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. Participated as a student in the demonstrations against the shah, which was overthrown in the revolution in 1979. Joined the judiciary and worked as a prosecutor in the new Islamic republic. Trained by Ayatollah Khamenei, who became president and then Iran’s supreme leader. As a 25-year-old, Raisi became deputy head of the prosecuting authority in Tehran. Was one of four judges in the 1988 tribunals known as the “death committees”. The committees sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death, most of them from the left-wing People’s Mujahedin (MEK). According to human rights groups, around 5,000 men and women were executed and laid in unmarked mass graves. Raisi became the head of the prosecuting authority in Tehran, and in 2014 he became Attorney General. In 2016, he was appointed by Khamenei to lead one of Iran’s most important and richest religious foundations, which controls a number of charitable projects and organizations. Nominated in 2017 for presidential election and came in second place, 19 percentage points behind the winner Hassan Rouhani. Appointed in 2019 as the supreme leader of the judiciary, which the following year executed at least 246 people, according to Amnesty. Introduced reforms that, among other things, led to fewer death sentences for drug crimes. Won the presidential election on June 18 with 62 percent of the vote and was sworn in as president on August 3. Source: NTB / BBC “The dark summer” is also provoking reactions within Iran. Hossein Ali Montazeri was one of the leaders of the 1979 revolution and was originally appointed heir to Ayatollah Khomeini. He was critical of the order for the executions, but when he commented on this he was quickly deposed and pushed out into the cold. Montazeri has described what happened in 1988 “as the greatest crime in the history of the Islamic Republic”. The now deceased ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri fell into disfavor after criticizing the prisoner executions. In the 1990s, he also had to go to prison, even though he was originally intended as Iran’s leader. Photo: Hasan Sarbakhshian / AP Follow the development in news’s News Center:
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Iranians sentenced to life for murder for the dark summer in Iran 1988 – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
