28 April 2022 :
Elite Students Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi Sentenced to 16 Years Imprisonment
On Monday, April 25, 2022, the Iranian regime’s judiciary sentenced two elite students, Ali Younesi and Amir-Hossein Moradi, to 16 years in prison.
According to state media, Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi have been sentenced to a total of 16 years imprisonment by Branch 29 of the Revolutionary Court. The students were sentenced to ten years imprisonment on charges of acting against national security, five years imprisonment for assembly and collusion against the system and a year for propaganda against the system.
Ali’s brother, Reza Younesi told Iran Human Rights: “Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi will be appealing this verdict. There was no evidence against them. They asked the judge to watch the video of their interrogations but the Ministry of Intelligence refused to give the video to the judge. Even the judge objected to the Ministry of Intelligence.”
Ali Younesi, a computer engineering student at Sharif University of Technology, and Amir Hossein Moradi, a physics student at the university, were arrested without a legal summons on 10 April 2020 and were held in solitary confinement for two months before being transferred to the Ministry of Intelligence’s (MOIS) Ward 209 in Evin Prison.
The Younesi later revealed that around 12 intelligence officers and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) suddenly raided his parent’s home and arrested Ali without any warrant.
During the last two years, interrogators applied mental and physical torture against the two elite students in an attempt to force them into making forced confessions. They insisted on their innocence, however, prompting the authorities to intensify pressures to break them.
Younesi and Moradi were held incommunicado for 600 days. The two spent hundreds of days in solitary confinement. Furthermore, Younesi contracted coronavirus in jail and was deprived of necessary medical care. His eyesight was severely harmed during interrogations.
The latest session of the “trial” was held at the Revolutionary Court—Branch 29 on April 17. Judiciary spokesperson Gholam-Hossein Esmaili had levied security charges against Younesi and Moradi on May 5, 2020.
In a futile attempt, the judiciary published a fake video on December 9, 2021, purporting that the two elite students had confessed to their “crimes.” But even the state-backed media challenged the judiciary’s claims and rejected the footage as evidence. Interestingly, the video clip did not show the faces of the students, which totally discredited the regime’s desperate scheme.
Fearing widespread backlash, the regime ultimately sentenced the two to 16 years in prison, despite earlier threats to sentence them to death. On the Younesi - Moradi case, see also 06/05/2020, 07/05/2020, 30/06/2020, 17/04/2021, 03/07/2021, 18/01/2022, 10/02/2022.
Iran: Judiciary Sentences Elite Students to 16 Years in Prison - Iran News Update
