File of 4 Defendants in 'Alcohol Distribution' Sent to the Supreme Court; Sina Yousefi: This Does Not Mean the Death Sentence is Invalid

On Wednesday, June 30, the Chief Justice of Alborz Province announced that the case of four defendants accused of 'distributing deadly alcoholic beverages' in Karaj, for whom death sentences have been issued, has been sent to the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic following an appeal. According to government news agencies in Iran, Hossein Fazeli Hekandi stated that last year there were two significant cases with 'national and international repercussions,' one of which was related to alcohol distribution, resulting in '17 deaths and several injuries.' In this case, 11 individuals were prosecuted, and death sentences were issued for four of them. He mentioned that following the appeal request, the files of these individuals are currently with the Supreme Court. In June 2023, several citizens in Alborz Province lost their lives after consuming substandard alcoholic beverages, and some became blind. In this case, which went to court with 11 defendants, the first to fourth defendants were sentenced to death for the charge of 'corruption on earth.' Additionally, defendants five to nine each received five years of imprisonment, the tenth defendant received three years, and the eleventh received one year of imprisonment. Sina Yousefi, a lawyer, described the issuance of this sentence as stemming from a broad interpretation of Article 286 of the Islamic Penal Code, emphasizing that 'a significant portion of death sentences issued by the courts of the Islamic Republic is based on this article and the crime of corruption on earth.' He stated that the 'actions of the defendants' in this case 'should not be discussed under such an article, as the consumption of alcoholic beverages, despite the prohibition by the government, is a common behavior among people, and certainly, the distributors of these alcoholic beverages did not act with the intent to produce and distribute toxic substances; their actions fall outside the subject matter of this article and do not conform to the crime of corruption on earth.' This legal expert also pointed out that, on the other hand, 'the government's negligence in the production of unauthorized and underground alcoholic beverages is one of the main factors leading to such tragedies.' Regarding the appeal for the sentences issued for these four defendants, Yousefi stated that 'the mere act of appealing does not mean the sentence is invalid,' but rather this is 'a stage of processing that takes place in the Supreme Court, and the issued ruling may be upheld or overturned.' Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, a lawyer representing one of the defendants sentenced to death in this case, previously stated that there are propositions that require 'special examination.' He mentioned that his client 'was selling ethanol alcohol, which was permissible, during the COVID-19 outbreak,' and 'some individuals used these alcohols to make alcoholic beverages, where in one case, the main distributor mislabeled methanol as ethanol, leading to deaths among consumers of counterfeit beverages, and the seller was unaware of this issue.' Consumption of alcoholic beverages is prohibited under the laws of the Islamic Republic in Iran and carries punishments including flogging and death. Meanwhile, according to a report by the World Health Organization published in 2018, Iran ranks ninth in the world in terms of alcohol consumption. Last year, at least in the provinces of Tehran, Alborz, Mazandaran, Qazvin, Hormozgan, Kurdistan, and Hamadan, alcohol poisoning, which some observers referred to as 'systematic murder' and 'serial poisonings,' resulted in the deaths of dozens of citizens. According to Ahmadreza Radan, during these alcohol poisonings, 'over 32 people' were killed in just one month. In this regard, Kazem Alamdari, a sociologist, stated in an interview that the responsibility for the production of toxic alcoholic beverages and the deaths of citizens due to their consumption 'without a doubt lies with the Islamic Republic,' as 'the prohibition of the use of standard alcoholic beverages has led people to turn to counterfeit and homemade alcohols, which poses a danger to the public.'