AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: MDE 13/086/2006 (Public)
News Service No: 201
1 August 2006
Iran: Akbar Mohammadi's
death in custody signals need for justice reform
The
death in custody of Akbar Mohammadi, a 38-year-old former student, in the early hours
of 31 July 2006 casts a pall over the entire Iranian justice system, Amnesty
International said today.
“The series of failures to afford Akbar
Mohammadi justice have robbed him of his life and his
family of human dignity. There can be no more deaths in Iranian custody. A
thorough reform of the criminal justice system is urgently needed,” added the organisation.
“The Iranian authorities need to take urgent measures to ensure that political
prisoners are afforded a fair and open trial; that torture and other
ill-treatment in Iranian prisons is halted and that
the practice of delaying or denying medical care is stopped immediately.”
Amnesty International is alarmed at reports indicating that following an
inspection of Akbar Mohammadi’s detention conditions by senior officials he was
administered a drug which may have resulted not only in his tranquillisation
but possibly, as a result of a complication, his death.
From around 21 July, Akbar Mohammadi had reportedly undertaken a hunger strike, the
last three days of which he refused liquids as well as solids.
Amidst reports that an autopsy has been carried out domestically by the coroner
(pezeshk-e qanouni),
Amnesty International considers that there needs to be an independent
investigation and autopsy by fully independent pathologists to determine the
cause of Akbar Mohammadi’s
death and the conditions that facilitated it.
Principle 9 of the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation
of extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions states: “There shall be
thorough, prompt and impartial investigation of all suspected cases of
extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions, including cases where complaints
by relatives or other reliable reports suggest unnatural death in the above
circumstances. […] The purpose of the investigation shall be to determine the
cause, manner and time of death, the person responsible, and any pattern or
practice which may have brought about that death. It shall include an adequate
autopsy, collection and analysis of all physical and documentary evidence and
statements from witnesses.”
Amnesty International also expressed concern that political prisoners Heshmatollah Tabarzadi,
Ahmad Batebi and Akbar
Mohammadi’s brother Manuchehr
are facing heightened risk following this latest death in custody.
Background
Akbar Mohammadi
was one of the thousands of students arrested in July 1999 after student
demonstrations which erupted following the closure of newspapers and one of the
periodic clampdowns on freedom of expression that occurred throughout the late
1990s in Iran.
Akbar Mohammadi
and other students were sentenced to death in September 1999 following a
manifestly unfair trial. He was brutally tortured while in incommunicado
detention, denied the right of legal representation and access to family. Following
domestic and international outcry, in November 1999 the sentences were commuted
to 15 years’ imprisonment.
From the day of his arrest, Akbar Mohammadi was routinely tortured. While in the custody of
the Ministry of Intelligence, he was allegedly suspended by his arms, and
violently beaten. Guards beat him to the edge of consciousness, telling him
that all he had to do was blink to accept the charges against him.
The information available strongly indicates that the repeated delays or
outright denials of adequate medical care by Iran’s judicial and prison
authorities have contributed to his death in custody. At the end of November
2003, for example, judicial authorities permitted his hospitalisation
in response to urgent stomach and kidney problems, internal bleeding and
possibly a lung infection. Despite medical advice that he be hospitalised for one month, he was returned to Evin Prison one week later.
Between July 2004 and June 2006, Akbar
Mohammadi resided at his family home in Amol, northern Iran, where he received medical
treatment and wrote a prison memoir. He was re-arrested on 11 June 2006 and
returned to Evin prison where, once again, he was
denied the right to meet with his family. Following one visit by his lawyer, Akbar Mohammadi was said to
be in ill health and suffering from acute abdominal pain. Prison medical staff
reportedly advised that he should be removed from prison for medical treatment.
According to sources inside Evin prison, he sought
medical care from around 26 July during his hunger strike but he was chastised
by medical officials who rejected his request. Between 26 and 29 July, he was
reportedly provided unspecified treatment, though an Iranian parliamentary
delegation visiting Evin prison was denied permission
to visit the section of the prison -- possibly the clinic itself -- in which he
was held.
On or around 29-30 July he was reportedly gagged and bound to
a bed while senior officials visited the prison. The Chief Prosecutor
for the province
of Tehran, Said Mortazavi, and two senior prison officials, along with a
prison guard reportedly inspected him on 30 July, during which time he was
administered an unspecified ‘medicine’. His condition reportedly worsened in
the course of that day and he died on 31 July. Despite the call by his lawyer
that his body be examined by an independent team of pathologists, his body was
transferred to a coroner on 31 July.
Akbar Mohammadi’s
parents arrived at Imam Khomeini Airport
in Tehran on
Tuesday 1 August 2006, at 02:30 local time, from a visit outside the country. They
were forcibly taken directly from the aircraft to awaiting vehicles and driven
directly to their house in Amol, northern Iran. They were
denied permission to see the body of their deceased son, as was his brother Manuchehr, who remains in Evin
prison. At the time of writing, there are reports that the body of Akbar Mohammadi has been
buried.
Public Document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty
International's press office in London,
UK, on +44 20
7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton
St., London WC1X 0DW. web:
http://www.amnesty.org
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