Iran executes man arrested over January protests
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
DUBAI – A man convicted of participating in an attack on a classified military facility during January’s protests in Iran was executed on April 1, the judiciary’s news outlet Mizan said, after his appeal was rejected and the Supreme Court upheld his sentence.
The judiciary said Amirhossein Hatami was found guilty of entering a restricted military site in Tehran, damaging and setting fire to the facility, and attempting to seize weapons and ammunition – charges he admitted during interrogation, Mizan reported.
The first deputy chief of the Judiciary, Mr Hamzeh Khalili, said in March that cases linked to January protests – a nationwide anti-government movement repressed in what the authorities described as the biggest crackdown in the Islamic Republic’s history – had been finalised and sentences were being implemented.
Hatami was among 11 men referred to by rights group Amnesty International as being at imminent risk of execution and who had been “subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in detention, before being convicted in grossly unfair trials that relied on forced confessions”.
In March, Iran executed three men convicted of killing two police officers during January protests, raising concern among rights groups such as Hengaw that Tehran is intensifying executions against political detainees and protesters amid mounting military and international pressure. REUTERS
