Edris Ali and Azad Shojaei, two Kurdish civilians from Sardasht, West Azerbaijan Province, and Rasoul Ahmad Mohammad, a Kurdish civilian from Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, have been sentenced to death by the Second Branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province.
The court convicted the three Kurdish men on charges of “espionage for Israel” in connection with the 2020 assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that the three men, who work as kolbars, initially denied the charges, which were fabricated by security interrogators, but were forced to confess under torture.
Despite being denied access to a private lawyer during the investigation, they were eventually able to obtain legal representation after their cases reached the courts.
On 5 November, Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri stated during a weekly briefing that three people had been sentenced to death in an investigation into the assassination of Fakhrizadeh.
Without naming the three men, Jahangiri noted that the defendants had been charged with “espionage for Israel” and “importing assassination equipment disguised as alcoholic beverages” through West Azerbaijan Province.
He said: “In the case of the assassination of Martyr Fakhrizadeh, three people were sentenced to death at the preliminary stage for spying for Israel. In this case, eight people were arrested in West Azerbaijan Province, three of whom smuggled the equipment used in the assassination under the guise of trafficking alcohol. These three individuals have been sentenced to death in the first instance and their cases are now under appeal”.
The three individuals were arrested in Sardasht in July 2023 by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and subsequently taken to the ministry’s detention centre in Orumiyeh, where they were subjected to extensive physical and psychological torture in order to extract forced confessions.
After being held in solitary confinement for more than eight months, they were transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison.
Their trial took place on 23 September in Branch Two of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Shahin, and the prisoners were informed of the death sentences at the end of October.
