The health conditions of Ahmadreza Djalali, the Iranian-Swedish researcher sentenced to death in Iran for espionage, have deteriorated to the point that he risks dying in prison. Djalali has lost weight, needs medical attention, is so sick that he can’t even speak anymore.
The complaint comes from a group of top experts in arbitrary detention and torture of the United Nations, including Javaid Rehman, special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic e Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions. Experts wrote a letter to the Iranian authorities asking for the immediate release of Djalali, who has been detained in Iran for the past 5 years and has been in solitary confinement for more than 4 months pending his death sentence for espionage despite the trial. against him was defined by all international observers as “grossly unfair” and arbitrary.
Iran, British academic imprisoned in Iran. Djalali’s execution scheduled for today is postponed
The UN committee speaks of “torture”: “His torture, arbitrary detention, death sentence and imminent execution are inconceivable acts that should be condemned with the utmost firmness by the international community. We urge the Iranian authorities to act immediately for revoke this decision before it is too late. “
Djalali’s conviction remained standing despite “credible evidence that it was based on a forced confession extracted under torture”, which Djalali himself was able to relate from prison. The wife Vida Mehrannia, who lives in Sweden with her two children, has repeatedly asked for her husband’s release, reiterating his innocence.
In the appeal, UN experts add some details on Djalali’s health conditions. “During his detention, he was repeatedly denied medical treatment, despite the strong likelihood that he had leukemia,” they write. The last time the wife was able to speak to her husband was on November 24th before he was placed in solitary confinement pending execution.
The European Parliament and various human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have moved for Djalali’s release. The Belgian and Swedish authorities have long been in contact with Iran to try to secure the doctor’s release, but his case risks becoming a pawn in a more complicated game linked to the conviction in Belgium of an Iranian diplomat. It is about Assadollah Assadi, a high-ranking official at the Iranian embassy in Vienna sentenced in Antwerp on charges of having participated in the organization of an attack, then foiled, against the Iranian National Resistance Council, a body that contains several acronyms of the Iranian opposition to the ‘abroad.
Antwerp, twenty years to the Iranian diplomat: “A spy wanted to hit Europe”
by Gabriella Colarusso
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