Iran’s Regime Executes Sunni Political Prisoner Anwar Khezri After 15 Years in Prison
NCRI
Written by
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
NCRI logoExecution of Sunni Political Prisoner Anwar Khezri After 15 Years in Prison
59 Executions in the Last 12 Days
On the morning of Wednesday, May 1, the henchmen of Ali Khamenei executed Anwar Khezri, a Sunni political prisoner, after he had served 15 years in Qezelhessar Prison. Contrary to usual practice, the henchmen did not allow Anwar’s family to visit him before the execution.
Anwar Khezri and six other Sunni compatriots were arrested in December 2009 and severely tortured in the Orumiyeh detention center to extract forced confessions. In March 2016, they were sentenced to death by the criminal cleric Mohammad Moghiseh (also known as Nasirian) and again in June 2018 by the notorious Judge Salavati, on charges of “acting against national security,” “propaganda against the regime,” and “spreading corruption on Earth.” The mullahs’ Supreme Court upheld these sentences in 2019.
Anwar Khezri and his six co-defendants were accused of causing the death of the Friday prayer leader appointed by Khamenei at the Kholafayeh Rashedin Mosque in Mahabad during the December 2009 uprisings. Before this, Farhad Salimi, Davoud Abdollahi, Ayoub Karimi, and Ghasem Abesteh, four of Anwar’s co-defendants, were executed in Qezelhessar on January 23, January 2, 2024, and November 29, and November 5, 2023, respectively. The other two, Khosrow Besharat and Kamran Sheikheh remain on death row in Qezelhessar. Khosrow Besharat has been moved to solitary confinement and is at imminent risk of execution.
Also this morning, Majid Barati and Farzad Garavand, two other prisoners in Qezelhessar, were executed as well. On Tuesday, April 30, in addition to the five prisoners whose executions were announced in yesterday’s statement, Faramarz Moradi in Ardabil, Mousa Fazeli in Qom, and Saeed Imani in Parsilon Prison in Khorramabad were hanged. On April 28 and 29, along with the 13 prisoners whose executions were announced in the same statement, four more prisoners were hanged in Dastgerd Prison. This brings the total number of executions in the past 12 days to at least 59.
The Iranian Resistance again calls on the United Nations and the European Union to take immediate action to stop the regime’s killing machine and save prisoners on death row, especially political prisoners and Anwar Khezri’s two co-defendants. Silence and inaction in the face of the godfather of terrorism, execution, and mass murder only encourage the regime to continue and intensify its crimes inside and outside Iran.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
May, 1, 2024
Iran’s Regime Executes Sunni Political Prisoner Anwar Khezri After 15 Years in Prison