A court in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, has sentenced a Kurdish man to death and six others to ten years and one day in prison each on charges related to alleged “armed insurrection” (baghi) against the state, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mahabad, presided over by Judge Ahad Siyami, handed down the death sentence to Kavis Abdollahzadeh Aghdam on the charge of “armed insurrection against the state”.
His six co-defendants – Hemin Mam-Ghaderi, Yousef Mam-Ghaderi, Mansour Karbalaei, Salar Bayazidi-Azar, Hassan Mamil-Azar, and Salar Seyyed-Rahimi – each received ten years and one day in prison on charges of “insurrection prior to obtaining weapons”.
The defendants were officially notified of the verdicts on 25 October, following an earlier trial in Mahabad.
Abdollahzadeh Aghdam and Bayazidi-Azar are from Mahabad; Hemin Mam-Ghaderi, Yousef Mam-Ghaderi, and Karbalaei are from Bukan; and Mamil-Azar and Seyyed0Rahimi are from the village of Gavmish Goli in Miandoab.
They were all arrested in late July 2022 by Ministry of Intelligence agents. During the arrest operation, security forces shot and wounded Hemin Mam-Ghaderi on the Bukan–Saqqez road.
Following their arrest, the men were transferred to the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention facility in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, where they were interrogated and subjected to physical and psychological torture for several weeks on the basis of accusations relating to their alleged membership of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and their alleged involvement in armed action against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
After the interrogation period ended, the detainees were released on bail. Abdollahzadeh Aghdam later left Iran.
Hemin Mam-Ghaderi had been arrested and imprisoned on similar charges on 16 May 2017, and sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Saqqez for “acting against national security” through alleged collaboration with the PDKI, as well as for ‘propaganda against the state’.
His sentence was later reduced to five years by the Supreme Court, and he was released from Bukan Prison in April 2020 following a judiciary amnesty during the coronavirus outbreak.
