NCRI – Hamid Ahmadi, an Iranian juvenile offender now aged 24, has been sentenced to death again in Iran, Amnesty International has said in an Urgent Action.
He is accused of the fatal stabbing of a young man during a fight between five boys when he was 17.
“Iranian juvenile offender Hamid Ahmadi, who had been sentenced to death in 2009 for the fatal stabbing of a young man, has been sentenced to death by the Provincial Criminal Court of Gilan Province for a second time. He received the written verdict on 17 December,” Amnesty said on Tuesday.
“Hamid Ahmadi was first sentenced to death in August 2009 after Branch 11 of the Provincial Criminal Court of Gilan Province convicted him of murder. The Supreme Court initially overturned the verdict due to doubts about the testimony of several key witnesses in November 2009, but ultimately upheld the verdict in November 2010,” the human rights group added.
“Hamid Ahmadi’s trial was unfair as the court relied on confessions he made at the police station where he did not have access to a lawyer and his family. He was a minor at the time and therefore he was not likely to have been able to fully understand the potential consequences of his statements before the police. He also claims that the confessions were obtained under torture and other ill-treatment. No investigations are known to have been conducted into his allegations,” Amnesty said.
“Hamid Ahmadi was arrested on 5 May 2008 after he contacted the police to report the stabbing, in which he said he had no direct role. He was held for three days in an apparently filthy, urine-stained cell in Siaklak’s police station without access to a lawyer or his family. Hamid Ahmadi said that, during this period, police officers pushed him face down on the cell’s floor, which was covered with foul-smelling water; tied his hands and feet together in a painful manner; attached him to a pole in the detention centre’s yard; kicked his genitals; and denied him food and water. One officer allegedly told him that he should not fear execution and should just ‘confess’ so that the investigation could be concluded as soon as possible. He said that the pain they inflicted on him was such that he was willing to confess to anything.”
“Between May 2014 and February 2015, Hamid Ahmadi twice requested the Supreme Court to quash his sentence and send his case back for retrial, once after a witness retracted his testimony and another time when a new witness stepped forward. Both requests were denied.”
“Iran is a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which prohibit without exception the imposition of the death penalty on persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of the crime. However, Iran continues to impose the death penalty on juvenile offenders and frequently defer the execution until after they pass the age of 18,” the Urgent Action statement added.