A complaint has been filed in Switzerland accusing Iranian deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi of crimes against humanity linked to anti-government protests in his country in recent years, lawyers said Thursday.
The complaint, filed by an Iranian-Swiss citizen, said Gharibabadi "may have committed serious crimes contrary to international law" linked to protests over the death in custody of a woman, Mahsa Amini, the lawyers told AFP, demanding the arrest of the deputy minister who has been in Geneva this week.
It suggested he could be "a co-perpetrator or, at the very least, that his responsibility could be engaged due to his position as a hierarchical superior at the time of the events".
"We expect the Swiss authorities to arrest the accused as soon as possible," said the lawyers William Bourdon and Philippine Vaganay, both French nationals.
"There is no other option," they said in a statement sent to AFP.
"This obligation to arrest him is imperative under both Swiss and international law; otherwise, the fight against impunity for those responsible for the most serious crimes is a pipe dream."
- Universal jurisdiction -
Swiss judicial authorities confirmed to AFP that the office of the country's attorney general had received the complaint, which was "currently being reviewed according to standard procedure".
"The filing of a criminal complaint does not necessarily mean that criminal proceedings have been initiated," they said in an email.
The complaint was filed under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows countries to prosecute alleged crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide regardless of where they were committed.
Gharibabadi has this week been in Geneva, where he on Monday addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Conference on Disarmament.
It was unclear if he remained on Thursday in the Swiss city, where Iran was taking part in high-stakes indirect nuclear talks with the United States.
The complaint is linked to Iran's brutal crackdown on protests that erupted in the country after the 2022 death in custody of Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rule for women based on Islamic sharia law.
It charged that Gharibabadi "could be held responsible" for having "participated in and covered up acts of murder, physical and sexual violence, arbitrary detention, inhuman or degrading treatment and violations of fundamental rights" during the crackdown.
The complaint highlighted that Gharibabadi at the time was a high-ranking official in Iran's judiciary, with command over those "who implemented the deadly policy, which led to arbitrary detention, violence, acts of torture and murder", as well as "execution of civilians".
- 'Extremely serious crimes' -
"His high-ranking position within the Iranian security apparatus and his role in the uprisings that followed the death of Masha Amini and continue to this day leave no doubt as to his criminal responsibility," Bourdon and Vaganay said in their statement.
The complaint, which relies heavily on a 2024 UN fact-finding mission report, also charged that Gharibabadi had clearly not taken "all the necessary and reasonable measures within his power to prevent or suppress these acts".
On the contrary, the complaint maintained that his public statements at the time "clearly reveal a fierce determination to cover up extremely serious crimes committed under his command".
It pointed for instance to a statement delivered before the United Nations in November 2022, in which it said he "clearly justified the massacres taking place", referring to demonstrators as US-backed "rioters" who "brutally attacked security forces".
Those statements suggest "he was fully aware of the serious crimes committed", the complaint said.
The text insisted on the need for Switzerland to take action in the case.
"One of the only ways to end the impunity currently enjoyed by the Iranian authorities lies in the exercise by third-party states of their universal jurisdiction over human rights violations," it said.
