Kurdish prisoners Aram Omari Berdiani, Rahman Parhazou and Vafa Hanareh, convicted of “involvement in intelligence cooperation and espionage for Israel”, were severely tortured by prison officials in Orumiyeh Central Prison just hours before their execution, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has reported.

The three Kurdish men and Nasim Namazi, an Azerbaijani-Turkic woman, were executed in Orumiyeh Central Prison on 28 December 2023 on charges of “involvement in intelligence cooperation and espionage for Israel”.

A source who spoke to KHRN said: “About ten days before the execution of the three prisoners, Aram Omari Berdiani, Rahman Parhazou and Vafa Hanareh were summoned to the prison’s Enforcement of Judgements Office. In the presence of a delegation sent from Tehran, they were told that if they repented, their cases would be sent to the Amnesty and Clemency Commission and they would be pardoned. Without being allowed to read the letter, they signed it”.

Despite awaiting a response from the Amnesty and Clemency Commission, the prisoners were abruptly transferred to solitary confinement on 28 December 2023, just hours before their scheduled execution. The move came as a shock to the prisoners, who had previously believed in the possibility of clemency.

After their last meeting with their families, they learned that their death sentences were to be carried out, contrary to earlier claims of a possible pardon and release.

The source added: “A few hours before the execution, they began to protest in their cells. Prison officials used force to beat and abuse them. When Aram Omari Berdiani, Rahman Parhazou and Vafa Hanareh were seriously injured, the prison authorities dragged them to the execution site with their bodies covered in blood. The prisoners shouted ‘We are innocent, don’t execute us’ until they were executed.

On 6 February 2023, Omari Berdiani, Parhazou, Hanareh, and Namazi, along with Mansour Rasouli, a former IRGC member, were sentenced to death in a joint trial by Branch Three of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Najafzadeh, on charges of “involvement in intelligence cooperation and espionage for Israel”.

On 26 December 2023, the death sentences of the four prisoners were upheld by Branch 39 of the Supreme Court, while Mansour Rasouli’s sentence was overturned.

Nasim Namazi, 54, Vafa Hanareh, 35, Aram Omari Berdiani, 35, and Rahman Parhazou, 34, along with five other civilians from Orumiyeh, Kamran Hanareh, 31, Fakhraddin Doudkanlou Milani, 26, Ashkan Osmannezhad Gandok, 32, Hassan Omarpour Mavaneh, 28, and Amir Moshtagh Gangachin, 28, were arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence in Orumiyeh over a period of several months, from autumn 2021 to early 2022, on charges of “involvement in intelligence cooperation and espionage for Israel”.

They were subjected to severe physical and psychological torture while held in solitary confinement at the Ministry of Intelligence in Orumiyeh and in Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran.

According to audio files of Aram Omari Berdiani and Vafa Hanareh from Orumiyeh Central Prison, obtained by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), these ten individuals were forced to make confessions during their detention in the Ministry of Intelligence’s Orumiyeh Detention Centre through physical torture and threats of imprisonment and rape of their family members.

However, during the court sessions, they denied all the allegations made by the security interrogators and spoke about the torture they were subjected to in detention.

The trial of these ten civilians was held in two separate sessions at Branch Three of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Najafzadeh, and the verdict was issued while some of these individuals were deprived of the right to have legal representation.

In March 2023, Aram Omari Berdiani, Rahman Parhazou, Amir Moshtagh Gengachin, Fakhraddin Doudkanlou Milan, and Ashkan Osmannezhad went on a hunger strike in protest against their unjust death sentences and imprisonment.