Four prisoners, Morteza Esmaeilian, Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Shahivand and Mehdi Sharafian, who were sentenced to the amputation of four fingers on their right hands, are at imminent risk of having their sentences carried out in the central prisons of Orumiyeh and Tabriz, in the provinces of West and East Azerbaijan respectively.
In late May, Esmaeilian was transferred from Orumiyeh Central Prison to Tabriz Central Prison to have his sentence carried out.
Meanwhile, on 8 June, Rostami, Shahivand and Sharafian were moved to the execution yard of Orumiyeh Central Prison, where they met with Saeid Nouri, the Deputy Prosecutor for Executive Affairs, and two senior judicial officials, who told them that their sentences would be carried out within a week unless they obtained the consent of the complainants.
All three men were forced to sign a letter relating to the planned amputation, raising fears that the punishment will be carried out imminently, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
The threat of amputation is nothing new for these prisoners. On 14 April, they were summoned to the office responsible for enforcing sentences, where the Orumiyeh Deputy Prosecutor said, in the presence of the prison director and the head of the enforcement office, that the judiciary was prepared to bring a ‘guillotine’ device into the prison to carry out the sentences once the legal deadline for seeking consent had expired.
Esmaeilian, a 45-year-old father of two from Orumiyeh, was convicted of theft in 2013 by a court in Tabriz, East Azerbaijan Province. The sentence, which includes both the amputation and imprisonment, was upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court in 2016.
Currently, he remains in a state of uncertainty in Tabriz Prison and is also at risk of amputation.
This latest development follows the execution of a similar sentence on 29 October 2024, when four fingers of the right hands of two imprisoned brothers from Sarpol-e Zahab, Kermanshah Province, Shahab and Mehrdad Teymouri, were amputated in Orumiyeh Central Prison.
Rostami, Shahivand and Sharafian, from the cities of Ilam and Khorramabad, were arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department in Orumiyeh in 2015.
All three were tried in a joint case and on 19 November 2019, the Juvenile and Youth Criminal Court One sentenced them to “amputation of four fingers of the right hand from the base, ensuring that the thumb and palm remain intact”. They were also ordered to return the stolen property.
On 10 May 2020, Branch 13 of the Supreme Court, presided over by Judge Ali Shoushtari, upheld the verdict.
At present, at least five prisoners – Hadi Rostami, Mehdi Sharafian, Mehdi Shahivand, Kasra Karami, and Morteza Esmaeilian – are at risk of having the sentence of “amputation of four fingers of the right hand” carried out in the prisons of Orumiyeh and Tabriz.
