As Sweden Tries Nouri Over Iran 'Prison Massacre', Analyst Calls Case Groundless

Hamid Nouri is accused of committing war crimes and helping to execute thousands of young Iranians, who dared to go against the authorities in Tehran. His verdict is expected in April 2022.

A court in Sweden's capital Stockholm continues to listen to the testimonies of witnesses in the trial of Hamid Nouri, an Iranian man in his 60s, accused of murdering between 5,000 to 7,000 detainees at the Gohardasht prison next to Tehran in 1988.

Although eyewitnesses were instructed not to talk to the media, with the prosecution claiming it could lead to the collapse of the trial, Kaveh Moussavi, an international arbitrator on the International Court of Arbitration, who initiated and is leading the case, says he's collected many testimonies that implicate the man.

"Nouri is charged with committing war crimes. He was the one, who came to pick up prisoners and then take them to their execution. I am sure he will get at least 20 years in prison".

In the 1980s, during the bloody Iran-Iraq war, groups of Iranians, who opposed the then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, were believed to have cooperated with the government in Baghdad. One such group was the People's Mujahedin Organisation of Iran, or the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, a militant organisation that wished to overthrow Khomeini and establish their own government in Iran.

As a result, Iranian authorities banned the group in 1981, while Supreme Leader Khomeini purportedly issued a fatwa, or a religious decree, allowing to execute anyone who supported or was part of that group.

Under Khomeini's instructions, Iran set up secret tribunals that aimed at retrying thousands of prisoners for their political activities. If the judges of those trials found them guilty, they were executed, often by hanging.

But Mohammed Marandi, a political analyst from the University of Tehran, has quite a different take on the events of those now remote days.

For him, members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq were "terrorists, who murdered up to 17,000 Iranians and who fought for Saddam Hussein [the then-Iraqi leader - ed.] in his war against Iran", and as such, they were treated as traitors and were given the same sentence as "all those who cooperated with the Nazis in World War II".

Marandi believes that Nouri "was tricked and kidnapped in Sweden, whereas the show trial he is currently on is illegal".

"He is an ordinary man, who was put on trial unjustly. Stockholm doesn't have any clear evidence. The dates of the claims made by the so-called witnesses were often contradictory or wrong and the whole thing looks like the European government prefers to give status and credibility to a terrorist group instead of trying its members".

Similar claims have also been made by Nouri himself, who denied any wrongdoing, whereas his lawyer charged that his client had not even been present at the prison facility at the time of those executions.

More Lawsuits Still to Come

Yet, no matter what the outcome of this case is, it is the first time anyone has stood trial over the prison executions of 1988. Moussavi is certain that the current trial will implicate others and pave the way for lawsuits against other officials, allegedly involved in the events of those days.

According to Moussavi, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who at the time was deputy prosecutor and who reportedly served as one of the three officials that sat on those death committees, could be among those people.

"It was like the Spanish inquisition. Raisi would ask inmates several questions that were designed to test their loyalty to the state. They asked which organisation they belonged to, whether they regarded themselves as Muslims and whether they were willing to go on national TV to encourage others to pray", claimed Moussavi.

If the answers were not to the judges' liking, they would be called "murtadeen", or people, who renounced Islam, and the penalty for that crime was death.

"In 2012, we held a symbolic tribunal in London [where Raisi was tried]. That trial was based on multiple testimonies of survivors and their relatives. Now we are planning to turn it into a real trial", said Moussavi.

The arbitrator has a team that plans to bring Raisi to justice, and although as the head of state he is entitled to immunity, Moussavi is certain that he can overcome that challenge.

"We have already seen presidents, who committed war crimes, facing a tribunal. Such was the case with the former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic and the ex-Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir. No one, in any capacity, enjoys immunity from the International Criminal Court [ICC]".

Now Moussavi will need to collect enough evidence to strip Raisi of immunity.

But even if that happens, Iran, which is not part of the ICC, is unlikely to hand over its president, and the ICC, which doesn't try people in absentia, will refuse to start the process.

"The practical meaning of this is that Raisi might never face trial, if he doesn't leave Iran. But we believe that justice will prevail. The message that we are trying to put across is that the sooner these people surrender, the better it will be for them. The conviction of Nouri is just the beginning".

The verdict in Nouri's case is expected in April 2022.