The Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Yaghoub Karimpour, an Azerbaijani Turkic citizen and member of the Yarsan religious minority convicted of “espionage for Israel”, placing him at imminent risk of execution.
Branch Nine of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence recently, and the decision was formally communicated to Karimpour in Orumiyeh Central Prison and his lawyers, an informed source told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
The death sentence was previously issued on November 2025 by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh.
His lawyers are pursuing a retrial request, but the risk of execution remains serious and immediate given the country’s political situation, the source added.
Karimpour, a disabled man born in 1982 in Miandoab, West Azerbaijan Province, was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence forces on 16 June 2025 and transferred to the Ministry’s detention facility in in Orumiyeh, the provincial capital.
He later described shocking details of his arrest, interrogation and judicial proceedings in a letter published on 31 December 2025.
He reported being held for more than two months in inhumane conditions and subjected to severe physical and psychological torture for approximately two months to force him into making false confessions regarding “collaboration with Mossad agents and transmitting intelligence data”.
Following this period, he was transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison, where he remains in the political prisoners’ ward.
Karimpour was denied the right to legal representation until his case was referred to Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Orumiyeh. The court session was held via video conference in mid-October 2025.
He was not able to defend himself effectively during the hearing and was sentenced to death by Judge Sajjad Dousti on the charge of “spreading corruption on Earth” (efsad-e fil-arz) through “espionage for Israel”, in a trial lasting less than 15 minutes.
On 8 November 2025, he was informed of the ruling in Orumiyeh Central Prison, and following an appeal by his lawyer, the case was referred to Branch Nine of the Supreme Court.
According to the letter, Karimpour – who is a beneficiary of the State Welfare Organisation, unemployed, and suffers from a severe physical disability requiring constant medication and treatment due to spinal surgery, lung surgery, and chronic mental health issues – was denied access to vital medication during his detention.
He emphasised that interrogators used the withholding of medication as a pressure tactic to extract forced confessions.
Karimpour stated that many of the declarations included in his file, which formed the basis of the “espionage” charge and the death sentence, were written under torture, duress, and at the dictation of interrogators.
In another part of the letter, he clarified that he had no position or access to governmental, military, or security centres and fundamentally had no access to ordinary, confidential, or classified information, and therefore strongly denied sending information to any institution or individual.
The letter also mentioned severe pressure applied through the simultaneous detention and interrogation of his wife. According to the prisoner, interrogators forced him to sign false statements by threatening to intensify the torture of his wife. He described this as a clear instance of psychological torture which, given his mental state and underlying health conditions, has left devastating effects on his well-being.
In another section, Karimpour listed numerous violations of his legal rights, including: failure to inform him of his right to a lawyer; preventing the presence of a lawyer (even a court-appointed one); blindfolded interrogations; death threats from the investigator; failure to provide evidence for the charges; the court’s disregard for claims of torture; holding the trial in absentia (via video) in under 15 minutes; and changing the indictment on the day of the trial to a capital offence.
Concluding the letter, he refered to the difficult conditions in prison, noting his inability to perform personal tasks without the assistance of fellow inmates, and expressed serious concern regarding his physical and mental health.
