Iran prosecutor gets two years for being 'accessory to murder' of protesters
A former Iranian prosecutor receives a two-year sentence for murders at a notorious prison.
Saeed Mortazavi, a former judge and prosecutor in Iran, has been sentenced to two years in prison for the deaths at a notorious detention facility during the 2009 postelection protests. An appellate court in Tehran upheld the sentence for Mortazavi for “accessory to murder” in the death of Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of a conservative politician who was on the campaign staff for 2009 conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei. Protesters said the balloting, which saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected to a second term, was rigged.
Mortazavi, called the “butcher of Tehran” for the large number of newspapers he shut down as Tehran prosecutor, became notorious for sending the 2009 election protesters to Kahrizak prison, where a number of them were beaten and killed. When the story broke that some of those who had protested in support of Green Movement presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi had been taken to Kahrizak and had died under mysterious circumstances, it caused a major crisis within the Islamic Republic and led to official investigations.
