Tehran’s prosecutor-general at the time of the protests against Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in 2009 has been sentenced to two years in prison, according to a lawyer representing the family of one of the victims.
A number of protestors arrested during the widespread post-election demonstrations died while in custody. Mortazavi was blamed for their deaths and taken to court.
Citing Mir Majeed Taheri, Tasnim News Agency quoting a close relative of one of the victims reported on November 26 that “the court of appeals’ verdict on Saeed Mortazavi’s charges has been issued and texted to him as an SMS.”
Mortazavi, the hard-line former chief prosecutor for Tehran, was acquitted of being an accomplice to murder in the primary court.Mohsen Rouholamini was one of the victim’s and his family protested the verdict and appealed.
Rouhalami, a graduate student in computer engineering at the University of Tehran, was one of the many students who protested Ahmadinejad’s re-election and were detained and taken to different prisons, including Kahrizak detention Center, near Tehran.
At least three young men, Amir Jvadi Far, Mohammad Kamrani, and Ramin Aghazadeh, who were detained in Kahrizak died in custody.
Amir Javadifar died on July 14, 2009 as he was being transferred from Kahrizak to Tehran’s notorious prison, Evin. On July 15, Rouholamini died in the hospital. Kamrani also died on July 16 in the hospital. All three died as a result of the torture they endured at Kahrizak, according to officials, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) reported.
The primary court found the notorious chief prosecutor guilty of illegally detaining people and sending them to Kahrizak and barred him for life from serving in the Justice Department and for five years from serving in public positions.
Now, three years later, the court of appeals overruled the verdict, sentencing Mortazavi to two years in prison as an accomplice to murder.
There has been no official confirmation or a second source reporting about Mortazavi's verdict.
The former judge, renowned as the “butcher of the press” for ordering scores of reformist papers banned, had previously apologized to the family of Kahrizak victims.
However, Mortazavi insisted in his letter of apology that the victims were not killed deliberately.
However, the family of the victims immediately rejected Mortazavi’s apology.
Mehdi Karroubi, the former speaker of the Iranian Parliament who is now under house arrest, was the first to blow the whistle on Kahrizak.
Nevertheless, had it not been for Rouholamini’s father, a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the tragedy of Kahrizak might never have been legally pursued.
In early 2010, the parliament released a report identifying Mortazavi as "the main culprit in the scandal" surrounding Kahrizak.