To: hrw-news@igc.topica.com
From: Human Rights Watch <hrwatchnyc@igc.org>
Subject: Iran: Intelligence Agents’ Trial Inconclusive
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 11:24:49 -0800
Message-ID: <0.700000877.27425387-951758591-980882689@topica.com>
Reply-To: hrwatchnyc@igc.org

Iran: Intelligence Agents’ Trial Inconclusive

(January 29, 2001, New York) The secret trial of eighteen Iranian 
intelligence officials accused of killing dissident intellectuals has
left key questions unanswered about the ultimate responsibility for the 
murders, Human Rights Watch said today. Three of the defendants were 
sentenced to death and two to life imprisonment on Saturday, January 27.

“When trials are secret, the public cannot tell whether justice was 
done,” said Hanny Megally, Executive Director of the Middle East and 
North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. “It’s good that the 
judiciary in Iran has tried to hold state officials responsible for the 
murders, but it’s impossible to say that the judgements were based on 
the facts.” 

During the trial, a lawyer for two of the defendants said that he tried 
to introduce ten witnesses to testify that the killings were in fact 
ordered by the then-Minister of Intelligence, Ghorbanali Dorinajafabadi, 
but that the court refused to hear them. Minister                        
      Dorinajafabadi, who was not indicted, currently occupies a senior 
government position in the judiciary. 

Family members of the victims who had access to some of the prosecution 
documents confirm that the minister was implicated by the defendants in 
a number of their statements.

Hundreds of Iranian dissidents have been assassinated at home and abroad 
in recent decades. “An open trial might have shed light on these 
murders,” said Megally. “Moreover, we cannot be sure that each of the 
defendants received a sentence proportionate to the degree of his 
responsibility for the crimes.” 

Human Rights Watch said that it opposes the death penalty in all 
circumstances, because of the inherent cruelty of this punishment and 
because of the possibility that persons wrongly convicted may be 
executed. “Imposing death sentences after an unfair trial does not serve 
the cause of justice,” Megally said. 

Human Rights Watch called for all of the information collected in the 
course of this judicial inquiry to be placed in the public domain. “If 
the investigation indicates that other, more senior officials are 
implicated in these events, they should be prosecuted before an open and 
impartial tribunal in accordance with international fair trial 
standards,” Megally said. 

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