Death sentence on Iranian professor, Ahmadreza Djalali is confirmed by the Supreme Court of Iran and can be implemented at any time

By Iran Probe Staff

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

According to  Ahmedreza Djalali's lawyer Zouhaier Chihaoui,  his death sentence has been confirmed by the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and therefore this sentence may be enforced at any moment. He announced yesterday.

Doctor Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian national and resident of Sweden, is a medical doctor, lecturer and researcher in disaster medicine who was arrested in Iran on charge of espionage in April 2016.

Earlier on January 24th, Zouhaier Chihaoui, a human rights lawyer in Brussels, announced that the verdict had been suspended and a judicial review  had begun by the Supreme Court in Iran.

He  also  had said that the deputy prosecutor and his assistant at the time of the investigation of the case had expressed  "opinions  similar to Ahmadreza Djalali's protests against the formation and content of the case".

A while back, Iranian state television aired a video of Djalali’s apparent “confession”, but he rejected a spy charge by releasing an audio file from jail and insisted that his television confessions had been distorted.

Amnesty International, on 12 December 2017, following the announcement of Ahmadreza Djalali's sentence, issued a statement  saying, “The Iranian authorities must immediately quash Ahmadreza Djalali’s death sentence, and grant him the right to present a meaningful appeal against his conviction before the highest court. Failing to do so will be an irreversible injustice.”

Also, four UN human rights rapporteur on 20 December 2017 issued a joint statement in which it called on the Iranian regime to immediately abolish the death penalty for Ahmadreza Djalali, a university professor.

These experts pointed in their statement to reports that Djalali had been held incommunicado, denied access to a lawyer, and forced to confess.

They also maintained that "No formal charges were brought against him for nearly 10 months and he was effectively prevented from exercising his right to challenge the legality of detention".

In the same action, some 75 Nobel prizewinners have called on the Iranian government to release Ahmadreza Djalali. The letter is the latest and most powerful protest against the ruling by the scientific community so far.

The group wrote to Gholamali Khoshroo, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, on 17 November, and the letter was made public on 21 November. The Nobel laureates expressed their concern for the conditions of Djalali’s detention; they deemed his trial “unfair” and “flawed”, and they urged the Iranian authorities to let him return to Sweden, where he lived.

Between October 2016 and October 2017, 508 executions were carried out in Iran, with 32 people executed in public, according to Iranian human rights group Harana. The group adds that of those executed, most were condemned to death during unfair trials without access to lawyers.

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