Three Kurds sentenced to death on espionage charges for Israel in Urmia
Hengaw: Friday, November 8, 2024
Three Kurdish prisoners, Edris Ali, Azad Shojaei from Sardasht, and Rasul Ahmad Muhammad from Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, have been sentenced to death on charges of espionage for Israel by the judiciary of Islamic Republic of Iran. In the past year, at least seven Kurdish prisoners in Iran have been executed on similar charges, while four others remain on death row.
According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, The judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri announced on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, without naming the three individuals, that they allegedly transported equipment under the guise of alcohol smuggling for the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mohabadi, a senior nuclear scientist and former Deputy Defense Minister.
These prisoners, initially sentenced in fall 2023, were brought into the public eye by the judiciary spokesperson after recent Israeli military strikes on Iranian bases. Edris Ali, 31, and Azad Shojaei, both married and from Dole Germe village near Sardasht, along with businessman Rasul Ahmad Muhammad from Sulaymaniyah, were tried by Branch 2 of the Revolutionary Court in Urmia, under Judge Shahin, on charges of “espionage for Israel.” Their death sentences were formally delivered in November 2023.
Sources close to the case indicate that the three men were arrested by Intelligence Department forces in July 2023 and held in an intelligence detention center in Urmia for eight months, where they were reportedly denied legal representation, prevented from family contact, and subjected to severe torture, leading to coerced confessions. They were later transferred to Urmia Central Prison.
During his press briefing, spokesperson Jahangiri disclosed that a total of eight individuals were arrested in this case, with three sentenced to death in the initial trial. Previously, on December 9, 2020, Hengaw reported that following the assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mohabadi on November 27, 2020, in Absard, Damavand, near Tehran, security forces had surrounded the city of Baneh, searching homes and arresting over 20 people. Hengaw had published the identities of nine detainees at that time, with authorities attributing Fakhrizadeh’s assassination to Israel.
This latest death sentence adds to the continuing wave of executions of Kurdish prisoners on espionage charges. In the past year, at least seven Kurdish prisoners—Vafa Henareh, Aram Omri Baderiani, Rahman Parhazo, Pejman Fathi, Mohsen Mazloum, Vafa Azerbar, and Mohammad Faramarzi—were executed on similar charges in Urmia and Ghezel Hesar prisons in Karaj.
Another Kurdish prisoner, Shahin Vasaf, who was arrested during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, is also facing espionage charges linked to alleged connections with Israel.
In the last two years, Iran has conducted at least two missile attacks on Kurdish merchants’ homes in Erbil, the Kurdistan Region’s capital. The most recent strike, on July 15, 2024, targeted the residence of Kurdish businessman Peshraw Dizayee, resulting in the deaths of Dizayee, his 11-month-old daughter Zhina Peshraw, and two others.
