Death Sentence of Kurdish political prisoner Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heydaranlou upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court

Hengaw: Saturday, March 29, 2025

The Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic of Iran has upheld the death sentence of Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heydaranlou, a Kurdish political prisoner from Chaldoran currently held at Urmia Central Prison. He was previously sentenced to death on the charge of baghi (armed rebellion).

According to a report received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Branch 9 of the Supreme Court officially confirmed the execution order for 40-year-old Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heydaranlou, a resident of Sagrik village in Chaldoran. The verdict was formally communicated to him on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, at Urmia Central Prison. He has now spent 716 days in detention.

In July 2024, Branch 1 of the Urmia Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Najafzadeh, sentenced Heydaranlou to death on charges of baghi, based on alleged membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The sentence was issued following a brief trial and relied solely on the judge’s personal knowledge (elm-e qazi), without the presentation of concrete evidence.

Following an appeal in August 2024, the case was referred to the Supreme Court.

Sources informed Hengaw that Heydaranlou was denied the right to legal representation both during his detention and throughout the trial process.

He was held for 11 months and 10 days at the Urmia Intelligence Detention Center under intense psychological and physical pressure. During this time, he was denied visitation rights and allowed only two phone calls. He was subjected to torture and coerced into making confessions, including admitting to armed actions against Iranian border forces and the killing of at least eight security personnel.

The court, acting under pressure from the Intelligence Ministry, linked Heydaranlou to retaliatory attacks allegedly in response to the 2015 killing of his brother-in-law, Mostafa Nouri, by state forces while working as a kolbar (border porter).

Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heydaranlou was arrested on Thursday, April 13, 2023, near the Chaldoran border along with several Afghan nationals by border forces. He was initially taken to a local security detention facility. However, due to a prior arrest warrant issued by the Intelligence Ministry, his request for release on bail was denied, and he was subsequently transferred to the Intelligence Detention Center in Urmia.

In early February 2025, he was moved to Ward 2 of Urmia Central Prison, where he remains imprisoned.