Arsalan Khodkam, a Kurdish political prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment, was temporarily released today after spending nearly six years behind bars in Orumiyeh Central Prison in West Azerbaijan Province.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Khodkam has been struggling with sight problems in recent months as a result of being denied access to specialist medical services.
Prison authorities informed him in October 2023 that he would be allowed to be transferred to outside medical facilities for eye surgery, subject to the approval of the prosecutor and the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Background
Khodkam, a 51-year-old man from Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, is a former member of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) who returned to Iran in 2002 after leaving the party and receiving a safe-conduct from Iran.
On 22 April 2018, Khodkam was arrested by IRGC forces, accused of “espionage in favour of the PDKI”, and was interrogated for 36 days in the IRGC’s 81 Ramadan detention centre at the Al-Mahdi base in Orumiyeh.
Interrogators also detained his wife, Nashmil Gheytasi, to put pressure on Khodkam and extract forced “confessions” from him.
Under psychological pressure and physical torture, the political prisoner was forced to accept the IRGC’s accusations of “having links with and espionage for the PDKI”.
Khodkam’s trial was held on 14 July 2018 in Branch One of the Orumiyeh Military Court without the right to a lawyer.
On the same day, he was sentenced to death on charges of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) and “espionage for the PDKI”.
Following the political prisoner’s appeal against the sentence, the case was referred to Branch 32 of Iran’s Supreme Court for reconsideration, but was upheld on 17 September that year.
Khodkam’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in April 2021.
