Coinciding With the 39th Court Hearing in Albania, Freedom-Loving Iranians, Supporters of the MEK in Sweden, Staged a Rally in Front of Stockholm Court
Tuesday, November 16, 2021 — The fifth session of the trial of the executioner Hamid Noury, began in the city of Durrës, Albania, with the presence of the plaintiffs and witnesses, members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), residents of Ashraf 3.
On Tuesday, November 16, the trial of the executioner Hamid Noury held for the fifth consecutive session in Durrës, Albania. In this session, MEK member Mahmoud Royaei testified as a plaintiff against Noury.
The trial of Hamid Noury, one of the executioners of the 1988 massacre, took place in three days 10-12 November of the last week, and it continues this week on Monday through Thursday, November 15-18, 2021, in Durrës Court, Albania.
This was the 39th trial session of the henchman Hamid Noury one of the executioners of 30,000 political prisoners in the 1988 massacre in Iran’s regime prisons across the country.
In the previous days, the MEK members and former political prisoners Mohammad Zand, Majid Sahib Jam, Asghar Mehdizadeh and Akbar Samadi appeared in court as plaintiffs and testified about the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Gohardasht Prison and the role of the executioner Hamid Noury in the massacre.
At 8 am on November 16, 2021, the hearing of the testimony of MEK member Mahmoud Royaei began in the court of the executioner Hamid Noury, in Durrës, Albania.
Royaei, arrested in 1981 at the age of 18, has described the crimes Iran’s regime committed against political prisoners in a series of five books. His writing also includes the role Hamid Noury played in the 1988 massacre as one of the senior prison guards in Gohardasht prison.
Royaei’s testimony indicates Iran’s 1988 massacre was years in the making.
At the beginning of the hearing, the prosecutor summarized the story of Mahmoud Royaei’s 10 years in prison. After this summary, the prosecutor started asking questions of Mahmoud Royaei.
In his testimony, Mahmoud Royaei, a former political prisoner who spent 10 years in Iran’s prisons, described on the atrocities that took place in the regime’s horrific prisons. During Iran’s 1988 massacre, Royaei was in Gohardasht prison.
“After thanking the judge, the prosecutors, as well as the team of lawyers who traveled to Albania to find out the truth, Mahmoud Royaei said: As you know, 21 years before Hamid Noury’s arrest, I revealed Hamid Noury’s role in the corridor of death in an interview. I saw Hamid Noury before, during and after the “death courts”.
“In March 1988, a group of prisoners were brought from Kermanshah to Gohardasht… under a plan to classify prisoners, employed by Davoud Lashgari, Nasserian [Mohammad Moghiseh] & Hamid [Noury],” he said.
“These series of events reminded us of the dark memories of 1981. Every night, hundreds of prisoners were executed while the authorities shouted ‘Death to the Monafegh’ [the term the regime uses to refer to the MEK,” Royaei said.
“It became clear to us that the first executions were from the prisoners of Karaj because [current regime president Ebrahim] Raisi was the prosecutor of Karaj and personally knew them,” Royaei said.
Raisi was a member of the “Death Commission” that decided the fate of each political prisoner. Those who did not disavow their support for the MEK would be sent to the gallows.
The Death Commission was acting on direct orders from regime supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini.
On August 2, 1988, Royaei was summoned along with several other prisoners.
The prisoners were taken to a corridor that became known as the “Death Corridor,” where prisoners waited for their turn to meet the Death Commission.
At the end of the Death Corridor was the “Death Hall,” the warehouse where prisoners were hanged in groups. As one group of inmates were hanged, the prison authorities forced the others to watch until it became their turn to have the noose thrown around their neck.
“After about half an hour, I recognized the voice of Hamid Abbasi [Noury] calling names. I pushed up my blindfold a bit and saw Hamid Abbasi standing in the middle of the hallway and reading names,” Royaei said.
“Around 5 or 6 pm, Nasserian took me to the Death Commission,” Royaei said. “There was [Hossein Ali] Nayyeri; intel ministry representative [Mostafa] Pourmohammadi, [Morteza] Eshraghi, and [Ebrahim] Raisi whom I thought to be a prison guard,” he added.
In the Death Corridor, Royaei heard Noury calling 10-15 names, those being taken for execution. “I was sitting less than a meter from [Noury]. I could see a few meters from under the blindfold. The guards were wearing military attire. But Nasserian & [Noury] wore plain clothes.”
Royaei: I came to Gohardasht prison in 1986, and I would see Hamid Abbasi and Nasserian from then on. I’ve remembered his face ever since… In total, I had seen Hamid Abbasi about five or six times from 1986 to the days of the Death Corridor.
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Stockholm, Sweden, November, 16, 2021— Coinciding with the 39th court hearing in Albania, freedom-Loving Iranians, supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) rallied in Front of Stockholm district court.
Supporters of the Iranian resistance declared their solidarity with the martyrs of the November 2019 nationwide uprising. They also stressed to continue of seeking Justice for the martyrs of the 1988 massacre and their families.
Iranians, MEK supporters and relatives of the 1988 massacre martyrs called for the prosecution of the mullahs’ regime leader supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the mass murderer Ebrahim Raisi, the executioner of the 1988 massacre, in international courts for crimes against humanity.
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At the same time, MEK members in Ashraf 3 held a gathering in memory of the victims of the 1988 massacre. They also, commemorated Iran’s November 2019 uprising and it’s martyrs. During this ceremony, many political prisoners spoke and retold accounts of the atrocities that took place in Iran’s prisons.
It is worth noting that hundreds of former political prisoners are now in Ashraf 3, and many of them were prepared to testify in the Stockholm court. Due to limitations in time, only a few were accepted as plaintiffs in the case.
