Kurdish Death Row Inmate Hospitalized After Prison Beating

The International Campaign of Human Rights in Iran - A Kurdish death row prisoner was transferred to hospital with internal bleeding after being severely beaten by agents at Rajaee Shahr Prison in Karaj.

Loghman Moradi was due to appear at Branch 74 of Tehran Province Criminal Court on February 23. That morning agents told him to put on prison clothes in order to be transferred to court. “Loqhman refused to wear prison clothes and said ‘I am a political prisoner and I have the right to appear in court in regular clothes’,” Eghbal Moradi told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

“Four agents were then ordered by Mr. Mardani, Head of Rajaee Shahr Prison, to beat Loqhman with batons, sticks and their boots and took him to the court judge with a bloodied face,” Eghbal Moradi told the Campaign. Eghbal Moradi said that based on information from inside the prison, three of the agents who attacked Loqhman Moradi are Mohsen Mansouri, Saeed Ghaffari and Captain Zolfali.

Eghbal Moradi is the father of Zanyar Moradi. Zanyar and Loqhman Moradi were sentenced to death in 2009, convicted of “enmity against God” and “corruption on earth” for allegedly murdering the son of a senior cleric in Marivan, Kurdestan province, in 2009. Both have denied the charges and insist they were forced to sign false confessions. The Supreme Court upheld the death sentences in January 2012.

In a January interview with the Campaign, human rights lawyer Mahnaz Parakand said that Zanyar and Loqhman Moradi should be retried. “Based on the letters the two prisoners published, as well as their video message in which they say they were forced to confess, the two prisoners should be tried again. According to Article 38 of the Iranian Constitution, extracting confessions under torture is illegal and invalid. As they said they have been forced to make confessions under torture, the Judge is legally bound to pay attention to the suspects’ statements. They should be investigated again under free circumstances, away from duress, and in presence of their lawyers, and after the Judge is fully satisfied with the investigation, he can issue the verdict,” she said.