JEDDAH: A prosecutor dubbed the “butcher of Karaj” was jailed for life on Thursday for his role in the mass execution and torture of dissident political prisoners in Iran in 1988.
Stockholm District Court in Sweden said Hamid Noury, 61, had “jointly and in collusion with others been involved in the executions,” which were a “serious crime against international law.”
Noury was an assistant to the deputy prosecutor at the notorious Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, where thousands of Iranian political dissidents were tortured and executed. Amnesty International estimated the number killed on government orders at 5,000, and said in a 2018 report that “the real number could be higher.”
Noury was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019, and charged with war crimes. He is the only person to face trial over the purge that targeted members of the People’s Mujahideen and other political dissidents.
Under Swedish law, its courts can try people for crimes against international law committed abroad.
Hundreds of exiled Iranians who gathered at the court on Thursday greeted the verdict with jubilant cheers. Reza Fallahi, 65, who spent 10 years in jail in Iran for supporting the opposition, said he hoped Noury would provide information about the killings. “We are just looking for truth and for justice,” he said.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran said “justice will be served” when the highest officials were brought before the courts. Rights groups say Iran’s current President Ebrahim Raisi was one of four judges who oversaw the executions.
