Hamid Nouri: Prison massacre accused to give evidence at landmark trial in Sweden

 

Hamid Nouri: Prison massacre accused to give evidence at landmark trial in Sweden.

A former Iranian official accused of crimes against humanity is expected to give evidence under oath for the first time on Tuesday at a landmark case in Stockholm.

Hamid Nouri, 60, is on trial over his alleged involvement in a 1988 prison massacre in Iran. He denies the charges.

The killings were allegedly an act of revenge ordered by supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, who supported the 1979 revolution but then turned against the new leadership and fought for Iraq under Saddam Hussein, during the Iran-Iraq war.

The order came just a few days after the end of the 1980-1988 war.

Human rights groups say about 5,000 people were killed in prisons across the country, but the opposition claim that the number was six times that figure.

n 2018, the UN deemed the massacre a "crime against humanity".

Charged with more than 100 murders and grave war crimes, Nouri is expected to give evidence that allegedly implicates Iran's current president Ebrahim Raisi.

Arrested in Sweden in 2019, Nouri is scheduled to start at least three days of evidence today, more than three months after the start of a trial that has heard testimonies from victims who described how Nouri played a key part in the lining up of prisoners calling out the names of those about to be hanged.

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During the mass executions of the Iranian opposition group, Nouri was an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the Gohardasht prison near Tehran.

During the trial, former inmates at Gohardasht described how Nouri celebrated some of these executions by offering sweets to prison guards.

"He held a box of pastries and offered sweets to prison guards as they passed by”, a witness told the court.

However, Nouri claims he was not working at the prison at the time of the killings.

Observers said the 60-year-old has interrupted sessions of the court several times to complain about protesters outside the court calling for justice for senior members of the Iranian government over their alleged involvement in the mass executions.

The trial even had to relocate to Albania for a few weeks to hear evidence from seven witnesses unable to travel to Sweden.

Opposition groups have said they will stage larger demonstrations outside the courtroom on November 23 when Nouri gives evidence.

The trial is expected to conclude in April of next year.

Hamid Nouri, who is accused of crimes against humanity and involvement in the massacre of thousands of political prisoners, showed in his first defense that he was deeply saddened by the testimony of dozens of political prisoners and the families of the victims of the massacre. He is illiterate and lacks the power of reasoning, reading the text of the defense, which was clearly written for him by someone else, perhaps in Tehran.

"I have a lot to say," Nouri said in part of his defense. They insulted me. They insulted my nose. They destroyed my nose! I will complain about all of them. [Model of Gohardasht prison transferred to Hamid Nouri trial in Stockholm + Video]

Hamid Nouri started with contradiction and confusion

Hamid Nouri, who was deeply disturbed in a Swedish court as well as in Albania because of his undeniable role in the massacre of prisoners and the global revelation of the massacre of prisoners, was confronted from the outset. On the one hand, he said that I should defend the 33-year accusation against the Islamic Republic in this court, and on the other hand, he claimed that I am not the representative of my country and I am defending myself.

He tried to call the whole massacre of 1967 a storyteller in his first defense session, claiming that such a massacre did not take place at all, and that it was all fabricated and paid for by the patient.

Hamid Nouri's defense in the first session of the court is reminiscent of the defense of the Nazi criminal Eichmann. Like Hamid Nouri, he denied the massacre and the incinerators.

 Hamid Nouri's first career was devoted to generalities of his defense. He, who seemed to be very delusional, said that all of Hamid Nouri's words were documented and that all my words would be cited by the whole world.