Kurdish Mechanic Sentenced
to Death in Iran despite Judge’s Acknowledgement of His Innocence
وکیل هدایت عبداللهپور: موکلم بیگناه
است و حکم اعدام با ملاحظات امنیتی صادر شده است
OCTOBER 11, 2018
Iran’s Supreme Court upheld a death sentence against a 25-year-old Kurdish auto mechanic on
false charges, the mechanic’s lawyer told the Center for Human Rights in Iran
(CHRI).
Hedayat Abdollahpour was arrested in late June 2016 following a
clash between members of the banned, separatist Democratic Party of Iranian
Kurdistan (DPIK), based in Northern Iraq, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (IRGC) near the city of Oshnavieh, in Iran’s West Azerbaijan
Province, “even though he played no role in the clash and wasn’t even there,”
said attorney Hossein Ahmadiniaz.
“One of the Supreme Court judges explicitly told me and his father
that Hedayat was innocent because he had nothing to do with the clash and its
aftermath, but the death sentence was confirmed because of pressure from
Iranian military and security authorities in Kurdistan,” added Ahmadiniaz.
The Supreme Court initially struck down the death sentence and
ordered a retrial at an unknown date. But on January 18, 2018, Abdollahpour was
again condemned to death by Branch 2 of the
Revolutionary Court in the city of Oroumiyeh for “cooperating with a Kurdish
opposition group.”
