Third Retrial Request for Death Row Political Prisoner Mehdi Hassani Rejected
21-May-2025
Category: Prisoners
20 May 2025
News category: Prisoners
Breathing in Confinement –
On Tuesday, 20 May 2025, the Supreme Court of Iran rejected, for the third time, the retrial request for Mehdi Hassani, a political prisoner sentenced to death.
According to Breathing in Confinement, the news outlet of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, Amin Adel Ahmadian, the lawyer representing Mehdi Hassani, stated:
“For the third time, the request for a retrial for Mr Mehdi Hassani has been denied by Branch 29 of the Supreme Court, just like the previous times, without obtaining the original case file from the lower court or granting the lawyer permission to review it.”
Mehdi Hassani and Behrouz Ehsani Eslamloo were sentenced to death on 16 September 2024 by Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Iman Afshari. The charges included moharebeh (waging war against God), baghi (armed rebellion), corruption on earth, and membership in the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization.
After the second request for a retrial was rejected, the third request was submitted on 28 April 2025. Amin Adel Ahmadian wrote on the social media platform X that the handling of the case blatantly violated the right to defence and fair trial, as access to the case file had not been granted at any stage of the legal proceedings.
Mehdi Hassani, born in 1976, is married and the father of two children. He was arrested on 9 September 2022 in Zanjan while attempting to leave the country and was transferred to Evin Prison.