Sentences of 16 years in prison for Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi
27-April-2022
Category: Students
25-April-2022
Newsgroup: Students –
Breathing in Confinement: Amir Hossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, the two detained students at Sharif University of Technology, were each sentenced to 16 years in prison by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.
According to “Breathing in Confinement”, the news organ of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, Branch 29 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi, two students at Sharif University of Technology, to 16 years in prison.
According to the verdict, the two students were each sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of “corruption on earth, conspiracy against the regime and propaganda against the regime.”
Concurrently with the announcement of the sentence to these two students by the Revolutionary Court, Tasnim, a state news agency, reported that two prisoners had been sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of having links with the People’s Mojahedin Organization. The news agency abbreviated their identities as “A.Y.” and “A.M.” Tasnim wrote: “After investigating into the case, the court of first instance, applying ‘Islamic mercy’, sentenced these students to 16 years in prison for their crimes including corruption on earth, conspiracy against the system and propaganda against the system.”
Confirming the conviction of the two students, Mustafa Nili, Ali Younesi’s lawyer, said in an interview with Emtada News Agency: “Today, the verdicts of Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi were announced by Branch 29 of the Revolutionary Court. The indictments of these two elite young men are about corruption on earth, conspiracy against national security and propaganda activities against the regime.”
Nili added: “In the verdict, referring to Article 687 of the Islamic Penal Code for so-called vandalism, the judge wrongly put forward the charge of corruption on earth for which, these two students were sentenced to 10 years in prison. They were also sentenced to 5 years in prison for conspiracy and collusion as well as one year in prison for propaganda activities against the regime, and in total to 16 years in prison. Finally, as per the Article 134 of the Islamic Penal Code, the most severe punishment, ie 10 years in prison, will be applicable to them. ”
Referring to the detention of the two students in solitary confinement for obtaining confession, Nili added: “In this case, from the beginning and repeatedly, the case officer (from the Ministry of Intelligence) has violated the law as well as the rights of clients.” He added: “Evidence of the allegations against them was their confession after spending about 50 days in solitary confinement, while they were barred from making any phone calls and were denied access to a lawyer. Whereas, according to the decision made in the General Assembly of the Administrative Justice Courts, solitary confinement is a form of torture.
“Later, when the two students were taken from solitary confinement to the investigator, they emphasized that they had made forced confession and that they deny it. The conditions for confession are specified in both law and sharia, and therefore confessions obtained from the clients are illegal and should not be relied upon,” Nily said.
Referring to the spurious charges against these two students, Nily said that incredibly, charges have been brought against them based on a piece of evidence for which another person has already been sentenced. In this regard, he explained: “Based on the evidence and documents of the case, it has been claimed that 21 acts of explosions have been committed by these two students. However, for only 7 acts, there are documents and police reports in the case. For one of these 7 acts also, in a separate case, another person has been tried and convicted and is currently in Evin Prison!
Ali Younesi’s lawyer continued: “It is hard to believe that there be an explosion in the city, without any evidence or police reports. The evidence for the allegations against my client and his co-defendant is only their forced confessions. And unfortunately, the verdict was issued based on these confessions.” Regarding vandalism Nilly added: “The existing reports state that no destruction or harm has taken place and only in one case there have been traces of soot on the door.”
“In his ruling, the judge did not pay any attention to the problems in the case. While at the beginning, when the case was referred to Branch 29 of the Revolutionary Court, judge asked for clarification of many obscurities in the case and the presiding judge asked that considering the clients’ claim – confession under pressure – they should be confronted with the interrogator face to face, but this did not happen and the prosecutor did not follow the court’s order!” Nily said, adding that: “Judge raised a number of other issues that were never addressed.”
Nili continued: “Another example was that the judge requested the prosecutor’s office as well as the Intelligence Office to present the videos of the interrogation sessions. Instead however, only a video of a professionally prepared documentary which had been recorded in the Evin school building after the interrogations was presented to the court!”
“Even the judge himself admitted that he knew that the film shown to him was not the videos requested by the court,” Nily said.
He said: “After about 3 months of detention, a meeting was arranged between the clients and some students of Sharif University in the prosecutor’s office building. While Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi did not even have a lawyer and had not yet met or contacted their families!”
Mostafa Nili continued: “The security agencies had given the videos to the news agencies close to them. He said: “It was hard to believe that Fars News Agency published a video of the client’s confessions in the Evin Prison School – the same video that was shown in court as the video of interrogations. Security agencies had provided these videos to news agencies close to them. While even we, as the lawyers, had not seen them! We, the lawyers have to rewrite the verdict like school children, while a security news agency publishes the news in detail!”
Nily, continued: “Earlier today, around 2 o’clock, when I left the court and turned on my cell phone, I learned that Tasnim News Agency, quoting its social reporter, had published the news of my client’s conviction as well as their sentences! Whereas it was a high security case and even we, the lawyers had been denied the right to have a copy of the verdict and had to transcribe it like our school homework. When we and our clients had just been notified of the verdict, the social reporter of a security news agency published the verdict in complete and correct details! The question is, who provided this information to news agencies affiliated with security entities?”
He said: “These examples show what the security agencies have done in this case and what has happened. In addition, after more than two years of the so-called temporary detention, the clients are still in detention. This is exactly what the Ministry of Intelligence and the security entities want. It was their plan from the beginning and had requested that clients must be kept in Ward 209 until the final decision is made. At the last hearing, the judge implicitly announced that he would issue a bail bond, but after the hearing, for unclear reasons, their detention was not turned into a bail.
Nily continued: “We are witnessing that despite the attractive speeches of senior officials of the judiciary on the prohibition of the use of temporary detention and the reduction of issuing imprisonment sentences, in this case the law has been obviously violated – the maximum period of temporary detention is two years. They are not willing to transfer these two elite students from ward 209 to an ordinary ward.
In the end, he pointed out: “They claim that we want to act in the best benefit of these two young men! What kind of benefit it makes to keep two young men in the worst conditions for more than two years in a high security ward? For more than two years, our clients have been kept in strict security conditions and have been blindfolded and have been in the same cell with convicts of various crimes, such as trafficking and financial crimes. And they still claim that they are acting in the best benefit of these two young men!”
We will definitely appeal the heavy sentence, although we do not have much hope that the law will be observed.
On Sunday, April 17, 2022, Mostafa Nili announced that the last session of the trial of Amir Hossein Moradi and Ali Younesi would be held in Branch 29 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The previous hearings of the two students at Sharif University had been held on July 3, 2021 and January 25, 2022 in Branch 29 of the Revolutionary Court.
Ali Younesi, a computer engineering student, and Amir Hossein Moradi, a physics student at Sharif University of Technology, were arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents on April 10, 2020, and transferred to ward 209 of Evin Prison, the Ministry’s detention center. The students are said to have been arrested by plainclothes agents while being beaten and without being presented an arrest warrant.
On May 5, 2020, Gholamhossein Esmaili, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, accused the students of collaborating with the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization.
It is worth mentioning that Amir Hossein Moradi is the winner of the silver medal of the 2017 National Astronomy Olympiad and Ali Younesi is the winner of the silver medal of the 2016 National Astronomy Olympiad as well as the gold medal of the 2017 Astronomy Olympiad. In addition, Ali Younesi has brought honor for Iran by winning a gold medal in the 12th World Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad held in China.