A former Tehran prosecutor convicted in 2009 for his role in the death of detained protesters has been acquitted by Iran’s supreme court.
Thousands of supporters of the reformist leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi took to the streets in 2009 to protest “rigged” presidential elections that favored Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s candidate. The Green Movement lost steam after Mousavi and Karroubi were put under house arrest in February 2011, which continues to this day.
Saeed Mortazavi was one of the security officials who jailed many detainees in Kahrizak prison. Four of the detainees died after reported torture and beatings.
His lawyer, Saeed Ayyoubi, announced the acquittal, saying his client’s record is now clean.
The acquittal took place after the election and inauguration of Ebrahim Raisi as president and Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei as head of the judiciary.
In April 2011, the EU sanctioned both Ejei and Mortazavi, along with 32 security and judicial officials, in connection with the repression of demonstrators.
Mortazavi was released from prison in October 2019 after 17 months on the grounds of “good behavior.”
In December 2017, the Iranian judiciary upheld a two-year prison sentence against him, following his conviction for participating in the murder of Mohsen Amini, one of the detainees in Kahrizak.
State-owned ISNA news agency said a judicial memorandum last month had dropped the accusation of participating in the arbitrary arrest against Mortazavi. The order, in turn, dropped the charge of complicity in murder.
In October 2014, the court dropped the murder charges against Mortazavi. However, he was permanently dismissed from all judicial positions and banned from holding government positions for five years on the charge of unlawful detention.
In April 2015, his case was reopened. He was charged with preparing false reports and complicity in the murder of Amini.
Initially, Mortazavi, an ally of hardline former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was relieved from his post in 2010 over the killing of protesters under torture.
Human Rights Watch described Mortazavi as a “serial human rights abuser.”
Mortazavi is one of the most prominent opponents of former parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, an ally of former President Hassan Rouhani.
He was arrested under pressure from Larijani after Mortazavi leaked an audio recording of a conversation he had with the speaker’s brother. The latter promised him to use the former speaker’s influence to acquire commercial deals.
The timing of Mortazavi’s arrest was viewed as a sign of the deterioration of the relationship between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
