Iran executed Kurd political prisoner Kamal Ahmadnejad in Miandoab, northwest Iran, on Monday morning. He was charged with killing an IRGC member and being a member of a Kurdish dissident group.
According to a source, the Kurd prisoner was suddenly taken to Miandoab Prison’s Section 2 two weeks ago and was executed on Monday, September 10. His family and relatives were only notified after he was hanged.
Kamal Ahmadnejad was arrested in 2014 along with five other people, each of whom were sentenced to 15 years behind bars.
Political Prisoner Kamal Ahmadnejad wrote a letter to the UN Human Rights Rapporteur, Mrs. Asma Jahangir on November 2017 in which he detailed the tortures he had been subjected to to make a televised confession.
His letter reads in part:
“I was arrested on December 24, 2014 by Intelligence Ministry agents in Miandoab city spent 24 hours in the Miandoab Detention Center where I was under constant torture. I did not even know why I was arrested.I was informed of my murder charge fabricated by the interrogator at the behest of Ministry of Intelligence. I was transferred to the Urmia Intelligence Detention Center on charges of murder.
I was interrogated and tortured for 6 months and was kept in solitary confinement in the Detention Center. The cell was the color of horror and fear. In fact, the cells are designed in a way so as to break the will of the prisoner and make him surrender by creating an atmosphere of fear, terror, and despair. These solitary cells turn everyone into a criminal.
I was no exception to the rule. I was subjected to physical, mental and psychological torture for six months. The torturers and interrogators were only trying to make me out to be a murderer.
I gradually realized that I was in custody along with five other individuals from the village of Gamishgoli, three of whom were arrested two months earlier than me.
I wished a hundred times a day to die. I had gone completely mad! Why me?”
Kamal Ahmadnejad was kicked, punched, lashed with cables and electrified among other things. He also noted that he was threatened with his wife’s arrest.
He also explained how he confessed under torture to a crime he had not committed. He was then forced to participate in a TV interview, after being threatened to death.
“The text of the interview was already prepared by the interrogators and torturers. A few days before the interview they tortured me to memorize the text so I could read it during the interview,” Ahmadnejad wrote.
“During my incarceration and interrogation, no attention was paid to my statements about being innocent. The judge who presided over the 1st Branch of the Miandoab Penal Court, issued a death sentence without considering my statements and the evidence and documents I brought forth..
They did not summon to court the witnesses who were willing to testify that I was at home on the day the murder was committed. Therefore, I declare that I am innocent and did not commit any crime. The Intelligence Ministry and other provincial security agencies are trying to kill me.”
The Kurd political prisoner had also urged Ms. Asma Jahangir, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and all human rights organizations to follow up his case and speak out against his unjust sentence.
A poster announcing a memorial ceremony for Kurdish political prisoner Kamal Ahmadnejad, executed on Monday morning in Miandoab, northwest Iran.
