The Criminal Court of Orumiyeh has sentenced prisoner Hadi Rostami, who was previously sentenced to amputation of four fingers of his right hand, to four years in prison and 80 lashes.
Branch 1 of the criminal court has issued the sentence without holding a court hearing, accusing him of “insulting the director of Orumiyeh Central Prison” and “disrupting prison order”.
A source familiar with the Rostami’s case told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that, “In the past few days, the prisoner has been summoned to the Execution of Judgements Office of Bukan Prison and has been informed that he was given a final sentence of four years in prison and 80 lashes for allegedly disrupting the order of Orumiyeh Central Prison and insulting Sohrabi, the head of the prison”.
According to the source, the sentence was issued without the prisoner being aware of the charge he faced.
Hadi Rostami had been transferred from Orumiyeh Central Prison to Bukan Prison on 18 February, for unknown reasons.
On 14 February, Rostami’s previously given 60-lash sentence was executed in Branch 8 of the Execution of Judgements Office of the Court of Orumiyeh. The inhumane sentence was carried out at a time that he was suffering from physical injuries caused by his two suicide attempts eating glass, in the earlier two months.
Following the execution of this sentence, Amnesty International issued a statement stating that by flogging Rostami 60 times, Iranian authorities reminded the world, in a heinous manner, of the brutality of Iran’s severely flawed judicial system. The organization called on the Iranian authorities to immediately overturn Rostami’s prison sentence and the sentence to amputate his fingers, and to provide him with access to the urgent medical care he needs.
Rostami committed suicide twice by eating glass in January and February 2021 to protest his detention in the security ward of Orumiyeh Central Prison and the risk of the execution of his sentence.
Despite his serious physical and health condition and urgent need to be sent to a hospital outside the prison after eating glass, Rostami was kept in prison due to the opposition of the inspector and the head of the prison.
After his suicide attempts, the prisoner suffered internal bleeding several times due to the shards of glass in his digestive system.
Rostami was internally exiled to Tabriz Prison from Orumiyeh Central Prison on 19 December 2020, without prior notice. However, Tabriz prison officials refused to accept him for a long period and he was returned to Orumiyeh Central Prison after one day.
On 8 December 2020, Rostami wrote a letter to Ali Akbar Garousi, Chief Justice of West Azerbaijan province, saying he had been tortured during his detention by intelligence agents and that he and his two co-defendants had been unjustly sentenced based on their confessions under torture. He demanded re-examination of the case and revocation of the amputation order in his letter.
Amnesty International had released a detailed analytical report earlier in December stating that Iranian authorities should immediately stop the imminent plan to cut off the fingers of Hadi Rostamiand five other detainees who were convicted to theft after unfair trials based on forced confessions obtained under torture.
According to the statistics compiled by the KHRN, there are currently six prisoners convicted of “theft” and sentenced to “amputation of four fingers of a hand”. These prisoners are the 33-year-old Hadi Rostami, 37-year-old Mehdi Sharafian, 42-year-old Mehdi Shahivand, 35-year-old Shahab Teymouri, 39-year-old Mehrdad Teymouri, and 40-year-old Kasra Karami.
