IRAN: TWO KURDISH POLITICAL PRISONERS EXECUTED IN URMIA

July 15, 2020:

Two Kurdish political prisoners, Diako Rasoulzadeh and Saber Sheikh-Abdullah, were executed in Urmia Central Prison on 14 July 2020.
The two men were executed on charges of collaborating with the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan and "bombing the anniversary parade of the Iran-Iraq war", which both men had consistently denied.
According to Iran Human Rights, "The two detainees were not allowed to visit their families before the execution," an informed source told IHR. "Saber and Diako were executed while denying the bombing under interrogation and even in court."
Diako Rasoulzadeh and Hossein Osmani were arrested on 25 February 2014 on suspicion of planting bombs at the Mahabad parade marking the 30th anniversary of the start of the Iran-Iraq war, on 18 September 2010. The bombing killed 12 and injured 82 others. Saber Sheikh-Abdullah was arrested on 15 March 2014 in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan province.
Referring to Saber’s repeated torture to force a confession, an informed source previously told IHR that Saber was studying for his master’s degree at Allameh Tabatabai University and had travelled to his hometown of Mahabad from Tehran for Norouz. (Persian new year).
Rasoulzadeh and Abdollah were deceived with promises of leniency as well as torture not to challenge the official account and to appear on TV to confess to having carried out the bombing. The Kurd political prisoners were finally forced to give televised confessions, broadcasted from the regime’s English TV network, Press TV in the summer of 2014. On 7 April 2015, the 1st Branch of the Mahabad Revolutionary Court sentenced all three men to death for Moharebeh, “enmity with God” by being members of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan and complicity in the bombing. The ruling was confirmed by the Supreme Court, except for Hossein Osmani, whose sentence was reduced to 30 years in prison.