Kamal Ahmadnejad, a Kurdish political prisoner sentenced to death by virtue of Qesas law (Eye for an Eye), has written an open-letter to human rights organisations and to the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights issues in Iran about the tortures he underwent and the fabricated forced confessions he had to make on Iranian Press TV.
A reliable source told Kurdistan Human Rights Network that ‘Kamal Ahmadnejad was arrested in the winter of 2014 along with five citizens of the village of Gamish Goli in the neighbourhood of Mian Doab following the murder of a member of the Bassij militia (a paramilitary militia consists of volunteers mainly in charge of maintaining Islamic orders in the streets) . His comrades arrested were Helmat Abdollahi, Soleyman Koori, Milad Abdi, Saeed Siaei and Mostafa Tehzadeh. Kamal underwent six months of interrogations, brutal torture and isolation in Orumiyeh( Urmiye ) Intelligence Agency Bureau, then he was finally transferred to Miandoab prison.”
The source said: “In 2015, all of those six prisoners were charged with ‘membership in a Kurdish outlawed party’ and sentenced to six months behind bars”
The source went on saying that the defendants were “told they are not allowed to appeal the court decision but one of them did it and was acquitted from the sentence of six months in jail. The court session of those six men took place in August 2016. Several eye witnesses have said that none of them were present at the crime scene. But despite the absence of evidences and without taking into account the lawyer’s defence claims, the court build the case without investigating anything at all at all. Kamal Ahmadnejad was considered as the mastermind of this crime and sentenced to death in virtue of the ‘Eye for an Eye’ law'”.
The source added: “The five other defendants were considered as his accomplices and sentenced to 15 years in jail. Later, four of them were temporarily released on bail after they paid a sum of 75 000 € each. Soleyman Koori remains in jail because he could not afford to pay such a sum along with Kamal Ahmahvand who cannot be released on bail as a death row inmate. The lawyer appealed the sentence and the case was sent to the Appeal Court of Qom. We are now waiting for the second sentence.”
Below is the letter that KHRN has translated.
“I was arrested on 24 December 2014 by members of Intelligence Agency in the neighbourhood of Mian Doab. I was held 24 hours in the detention centre of Miandoab where I faced horrific torture. I did not even know why I had been arrested. The Intelligence Agency fabricated charges against me and suddenly I was suspected of a murder and transferred to a detention centre in Orumiyeh.
I had been held in an isolation cell and tortured for six months. Those cells had the colour of sadness, darkness and despair. They are made to psychologically destroy human beings. Isolation cells of Orumiyeh would turn any normal citizen into a savage pig. I underwent six months of physical, moral and psychological tortures. My torturers did everything they could to present me like a murderer.
Most of the time, I was under torture and was not aware of what was happening. But I then realised that I was kept along with 5 other citizens from the village of Gamish Goli. Two of them had been actually arrested two months before I was arrested. The brutality of the guards was unimaginable. During that period, I prayed 100 times a day to die to end my sufferings. I was on the verge of becoming mad. Why these things happened to me ?
The torture worsened and each day turned more brutal It started with pinching and kicking and continued with lashes with electrical cables. Once they even hung me upside down while using electrical shocks.
They threatened me to summon my wife to the Intelligence Agency and constantly insulted my family and I.
The more I repeated I have nothing to do with this murder, the more my torturers became brutal.
Finally, I resigned myself to confess a murder I did not commit and because of the physical sufferings and death threats, I accepted to make the TV confession broadcast by Press TV.
The text of The TV confession was entirely written by my torturers. A few days before the ‘interview’ on Press TV, they forced me, with more brutality than ever, to memorise the script to be able to recite it live on TV.
Several times during the interview, I changed my mind and refused to recite but they knew how to force me to continue.
There were no investigations. The judge and my torturers did not listen to my version of the events. At the Court, the judge refused to take into account what eye witnesses said repeatedly that I was not there when the murder was committed. The scene of the crime was not investigated. The judge only listened the Intelligence Agency’s version of events.
That’s why I say and I repeat it that I am innocent. I haven’t committed any crimes and I declare that the Intelligence Agency tried to make me take the blame. I implore Mrs Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as Human rights Watch, Amnesty International and others NGOs, to raise awareness about my case and to demand from Iranian authorities to not sacrifice me.”
Kamal Ahmadnejad,
Prison of MianDoab
