Murder Trial in Sweden Could Shine Unsavory Light on Iran’s New President

He was a 28-year-old student and a member of a communist group in Iran who was serving a 10-year prison sentence in 1988 when his family said he was called to a committee and executed without trial or defense.

Family members said they did not receive the body or will or the location of a burial site. They were given a duffel bag with a wristwatch, a shirt and a certificate that did not state the execution as the cause of death.

Student Bijan Bazargan was among an estimated 5,000 prisoners belonging to armed opposition and leftist groups in Iran who were executed in the summer of 1988, according to Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

Bijan Bazargan was among an estimated 5,000 prisoners executed in 1988, according to Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

Now a Swedish court is about to prosecute a former Iranian judicial officer for war crimes and murder related to the death of Mr Bazargan. The case has some notable public and damaging ramifications for Iranian-elect Ebrahim Raisi, who helped decide which prisoners lived or died during these mass executions.

The defendant, Hamid Noury, 59, was charged on Tuesday in Sweden under what is known as the principle of universal jurisdiction, a principle of international law that theoretically allows any national court to try defendants in outrageous crimes regardless of where they are involved.

His trial begins on August 10, less than a week after Mr. Raisi took office nearly 3,000 miles away in Tehran. The process, which is expected to last until next April, risks revealing new details about Mr Raisi’s role – a historic period he has tried to minimize or ignore.

Mr. Noury ​​served as assistant to the assistant prosecutor at Gohardasht Prison, where Mr. Bazargan and hundreds of prisoners were brought to the gallows.

The mass executions represent one of the most brutal and opaque raids of the Islamic Republic against its opponents. International human rights groups speak of crimes against humanity.

“Some people tell us to forgive and forget, but we can’t,” said Laleh Bazargan, sister of Mr Bazargan, a 51-year-old pharmacist who emigrated to Sweden and lives in Stockholm. “The truth must come to light, for conclusion and accountability.”

Mr. Raisi, 60, was a member of the four-person committee that interrogated prisoners and issued execution orders. Mr Raisi said he acted under the leadership of the revolution’s founding father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who ordered a committee to be formed to facilitate the executions.

Allegations about Mr Raisi’s work on that committee have accompanied him as he ascended the Iranian hierarchy, where he was chief of justice prior to the June elections that promoted him to president. Amnesty International has requested a formal investigation into Mr Raisi’s past.

Though Raisi enjoys diplomatic immunity when traveling abroad as the country’s president, the Sweden case could at least present him with an annoying optics problem as he sets off in search of the world.

The United States, which put Raisi on a sanctions list two years ago for violations of the law, is obliged to grant him a visa as a United Nations host country if he wants to attend the General Assembly in New York in September. Even so, six Republican senators called on President Biden to deny Mr. Raisi and other senior Iranian officials visas for this gathering, the largest diplomatic stage in the world.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations said through a spokesman that it had no comment on the process in Sweden and that Mr Raisi’s travel plans for the General Assembly remain unclear because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But Mr Raisi is supposed to speak at the event, either in person or virtually.

The case against Mr Nouri appeared to make him the first Iranian accused in a criminal prosecution based on the principle of universal jurisdiction. Iranian officials and activists have been convicted of murder and terrorist conspiracies in those countries in Germany, France and most recently Belgium – but never for crimes committed in Iran, legal experts said.

“The process is extremely important in breaking the cycle of impunity from Iran to elsewhere for officials accused of serious human rights violations,” said Shadi Sadr, a well-known human rights lawyer in London.

In announcing the charges against Mr Noury, Sweden’s Prosecutor Kristina Lindhoff Carleson said that “the extensive investigations that led to these charges show that these acts, although committed outside of Sweden and more than three decades ago, are subject matter of legal proceedings in Sweden. “

The prosecutor’s statement said the defendant was suspected of having participated in the mass executions by deliberately taking the lives of prisoners and treating them with torture and inhuman treatment. According to the Swedish authorities, such actions violated the Geneva Conventions.

Most of the prisoners were members of an armed opposition group, the mujahideen Khalq, now widely known as the MEK, and left-wing political groups. Human rights activists said most of the executed prisoners had not been convicted of capital crimes and had served prison terms.

Mr Noury ​​was arrested at Stockholm Airport when he arrived in 2019 to visit his family. Activists learned of his travel plans and alerted the authorities, who refused to give him bail. They opened an investigation and interviewed dozen of the victims’ family members, survivors and Iranian human rights activists who had recorded testimonies and details of the mass executions for years.

Mr Noury’s lawyer has told the Swedish media that he denies the allegations and that the authorities have arrested the wrong man.

The Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, a Washington-based advocacy group for Iran rights, named after a pro-democracy Iranian lawyer murdered in 1991, published a report on the 1988 mass executions in 2010. The report was prepared by a British lawyer who heads an international civil war tribunal was in Sierra Leone.

Roya Boroumand, a daughter of Mr Boroumand, the foundation’s executive director, said the subsequent investigation revealed that Mr Noury, known by the pen name Hamid Abbasi, was the right-hand man of the Gohardasht Prison Deputy Prosecutor.

She said Mr. Noury ​​and others like him played an active role in interviewing prisoners, preparing the list of names for the so-called death committee, and then leading listed prisoners blindfolded from their cells through a dark hallway to a room, in which the committee members, including Mr. Raisi, interrogated them.

The committee asked the prisoners about their political beliefs and their willingness to condemn comrades and express their allegiance to the Islamic Republic. The committee often decided on the spot whether the prisoners were alive, Ms. Boroumand said.

“The importance of the Sweden case is not about a person, but about bringing the Islamic Republic to justice,” said Ms. Boroumand. “It’s coming back to prosecute and hopefully it will prevent such crimes from happening again.”

The mass executions took place in Tehran’s Evin Prison and Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, about 19 km west of Tehran. In Gohardasht, convicts were hung from pipes in an adjacent area known as Hosseiniyeh, usually used for religious ceremonies and prayers. The bodies were buried in mass graves in secret locations.

About 30 plaintiffs, including Mr Bazargan’s sister, are expected to testify in the Swedish trial against Mr Noury.

Ms. Bazargan said she thinks of her brother every day. She was 13 years old when he was arrested at 23 and was allowed to visit him once a year until he was executed five years later.

In an interview, she remembered him as a protective and caring older brother who took her to the movies and restaurants and gave her advice on school and friends.

For many years, Ms. Bazargan said, she had imagined what she would say if she faced one of the people suspected of having executed him.

That day is now set for October 19th in a courtroom in Stockholm.

“I want to look him in the eye and say, ‘Speak,’” said Ms. Bazargan. “Talk about what you did. Talk about what you did to him. Talk about how you killed so many people. “