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STOCKHOLM, July 14 (Reuters) – A Swedish court docket on Thursday sentenced a former Iranian official to life in jail for his half within the mass execution and torture of political prisoners within the Nineteen Eighties.
Hamid Noury, 61, who was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019, was charged with battle crimes for the mass execution and torture of political prisoners on the Gohardasht jail in Karaj, Iran, in 1988. learn extra
“The accused has within the function of assistant to the deputy prosecutor on the Gohardasht jail in Karaj, Tehran collectively and in collusion with others been concerned within the executions, which came about after a fatwa from Iran’s Supreme Chief,” Stockholm District Court docket mentioned in an announcement.
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It mentioned these have been deemed as a “critical crime towards worldwide regulation” and homicide. “The sentence is life imprisonment,” the court docket mentioned.
Amnesty Worldwide has put the quantity executed on authorities orders at round 5,000, saying in a 2018 report that “the actual quantity could possibly be larger”. Iran has by no means acknowledged the killings.
Noury, who denies the fees, is the one individual to this point to face trial over the purge that focused members of the Iranian Individuals’s Mujahideen, which was combating in elements of Iran, in addition to different political dissidents.
His lawyer was not instantly obtainable for a remark.
Iranian International Ministry didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark after the decision, however on Wednesday its spokesman instructed a information convention Sweden ought to launch Noury “as quickly as doable”.
The trial has targeted unwelcome consideration on Iran’s hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, who’s beneath U.S. sanctions over his previous actions that embody what Washington and activists say was his involvement as one in every of 4 judges who oversaw the 1988 killings.
Raisi, when requested concerning the allegations, instructed reporters after his election in 2021 that he had defended nationwide safety and human rights. learn extra
The case has soured relations between the 2 international locations with Iran calling the trial “unlawful”.
Underneath Swedish regulation, courts can strive Swedish residents and different nationals for crimes towards worldwide regulation dedicated overseas.
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Reporting by Simon Johnson, Johan Ahlander and Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, Stine Jacobsenin Copenhagen and Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Enhancing by Alison Williams and Tomasz Janowski
Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Rules.
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