Hamid Nouri, 61, was arrested at Stockholm airport in 2019 and charged with war crimes for the executions and torture at Gohardast prison. In the 1980s Nouri was an assistant prosecutor in this prison.
A Swedish court today sentenced a former Iranian official, a high-ranking official in an Iranian prison, to life in prison for his role in the mass executions and torture of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
Hamid Nouri, 61, was arrested at Stockholm airport in 2019 and charged with war crimes for the executions and torture at Gohardast prison. In the 1980s Nouri was an assistant prosecutor in this prison.
The court found him guilty of “crimes in violation of international law” and “murder”. “Jointly and in cooperation with others, he was involved in the executions carried out following the issuance of a fatwa by Iran’s then-supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini,” according to the verdict.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry, which had criticized the trial many times and called for Nouri’s release, spoke of a “political decision” and “baseless and fabricated accusations”.
Although Nouri played a minor role, it is the first time an Iranian official has been tried and convicted for these persecutions, which primarily targeted members of the armed opposition People’s Mujahideen movement.
According to the court, Hamid Nouri “searched for the prisoners, took them to the commission” that sentenced them to death and “escorted them to the place of their execution”.
The judges accepted the prosecution’s proposal and sentenced him to life in prison, a sentence that in Sweden is usually equivalent to 15 years in prison.
The trial began in August 2021 and caused the deterioration of relations between Sweden and Iran. There were also fears that Tehran would retaliate by targeting Western prisoners, such as Iranian-Swedish professor Ahmadreza Jalali.
Hamid Nouri himself rejected the testimonies of the former prisoners who accused him of his participation in the executions. He claimed that he was being prosecuted as part of a “conspiracy” by the People’s Mujahideen aimed at discrediting the Tehran regime, that he was on leave at the time of the events or that he was working in another prison.
One of his lawyers, Thomas Senterqvist, said he would appeal the decision.
Human rights organizations estimate that at least 5,000 prisoners were executed in the summer of 1988 after being sentenced by “death commissions”.
The People’s Mujahideen put the death toll at 30,000.
The purges were ordered after attacks by the armed group, then allied to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
Today, around 300 people waited in court to hear the decision and erupted in cheers when the verdict was read. “I am very happy. It’s a historic day,” said Mehri Emrani, 61, who spent eight years in prison and whose husband testified against Nouri. “I was crying, thinking about my cellmates, Shirin and Shamsi,” she said.
“Thank you, Sweden,” chanted the crowd in the court in Persian.
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