Lawyer for Rouh-al-Amini Family: Mortazavi's Case is in the Hands of Judicial Agents

Mir-Majid Taheri, the lawyer for the family of Mohsen Rouh-al-Amini, stated on Tuesday, April 16, that 'an arrest warrant has been issued for Mortazavi, and if his case had not gone to the execution of sentences, the arrest warrant would not have been issued.' This lawyer emphasized that the case against Saeed Mortazavi has gone through all its legal processes and clarified: 'Currently, Mortazavi's case is not accessible to the execution judge and is with the head of the Government Employees Prosecutor's Office, and they are handling the arrest and apprehension actions themselves. It has been announced that the case is in the hands of judicial agents for further actions.' Mr. Taheri added, 'When a case goes to execution, the execution judge takes initial actions and then issues the arrest order.' The lawyer for the Rouh-al-Amini family, recalling that the case is in the second branch of the execution of sentences at the Government Employees Prosecutor's Office, said: 'We do not have direct involvement or intervention in the matter of Mortazavi's arrest to send an agent to apprehend him.' The issue of Saeed Mortazavi, the former Tehran prosecutor and former head of the Social Security Organization, going missing or being in hiding became newsworthy after Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the spokesperson and first deputy of the judiciary, mentioned during a speech at a student gathering in Mashhad last Wednesday about the fate of the accused in the Kahrizak case: 'An arrest warrant has been issued, but unfortunately, they have not caught him yet; I don't know how that is?' This statement prompted reactions from several members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, political activists, lawyers, and social media activists. Hossein Alizadeh, media advisor to Hassan Rouhani, also tweeted a warning: 'We must be careful that Mortazavi does not become Khavari; he should neither escape nor be helped to escape.' Fatemeh Saidi, a representative from Tehran in the parliament, announced on Twitter that she would summon the ministers of justice and interior to the parliament regarding Mortazavi, writing: 'I will call the ministers of justice and interior to explain the failure to deliver Saeed Mortazavi to prison. If the final and issued sentence must be executed.' The ongoing uncertainty about Mortazavi's whereabouts and fate has become a contentious issue in recent days. Mostafa Tork Hamdani, a lawyer representing several workers in their complaint against Mortazavi regarding the Social Security Organization, told ILNA: 'During the trial and proceedings, Mr. Mortazavi appeared in court with his bodyguards, who accompanied him based on the Supreme National Security Council's directives.' He clarified: 'These bodyguards receive their salaries from the government, and placing these individuals alongside certain personalities is to ensure that the individual in question is always available and on duty 24/7.' The lawyer continued regarding the Social Security case: 'I believe Mr. Mortazavi had about 9 bodyguards, with three protecting him per shift — this number may be slightly less or more — in any case, these actions contradict the spokesman's statements, and it is strange how Mortazavi's bodyguards have no information about him and do not know where he is? With all this protection, how can they be unaware of Mortazavi's whereabouts?' Gholamreza Heydari, another Tehran representative in the parliament, stated in an interview with the news website Rouydad24 that 'there is no will to deal with Mortazavi.' This parliament member referred to Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei's remarks, saying: 'It could not have weakened the judiciary more than this.' However, the scope of protests and criticisms regarding the non-execution of Saeed Mortazavi's prison sentence extended beyond reformist representatives in the Hope faction. On Tuesday, the Iran newspaper published an interview with Mohammad Javad Abtahi, a principlist representative from the Stability Front, in which he expressed hope that the statements attributed to the first deputy of the judiciary regarding the execution of Mortazavi's sentence were media errors, as he stated that if these quotes were accurate, they would 'discredit the entire judiciary.' According to this principlist parliament member, 'We once apprehend two young men who robbed 70,000 tomans within two or three weeks, we prosecute them, issue a sentence, and execute them. Meanwhile, the case of Saeed Mortazavi, which involves various accusations from Kahrizak issues to major Social Security violations, has been stalled for several years.' Mortazavi, who is one of the main accused in the torture and murder case of several protesters against the results of the 2009 presidential election held in Kahrizak detention center, was sentenced to two years in prison. This sentence was finally issued in December 2017 after years. Three months later, in March, it was reported that an arrest warrant had been issued for Mr. Mortazavi, but this warrant has not yet been executed, leading to further ambiguities surrounding the matter. For years, Saeed Mortazavi was also the head of Iran's Press Court, where he shut down dozens of critical and opposing publications and ordered the arrest and imprisonment of many press activists. One of the controversial cases in which he is considered a main accused is the murder of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photographer, who was detained on his orders. Recently, Ali Younesi, a former Minister of Intelligence in Iran, identified Mr. Mortazavi as the main responsible for Zahra Kazemi's murder. However, Mortazavi's two-year sentence is unrelated to this case and only pertains to the Kahrizak detention center case, where he is accused of 'aiding and abetting murder.' Additionally, after the parliament's investigation into the Social Security Organization, Mortazavi, as the then-CEO of the organization, was accused of 'widespread financial violations,' 'illegal appropriation,' and 'negligence in performing duties,' which resulted in a primary court conviction of six months of suspended imprisonment, six months of punitive imprisonment, the return of 45 million tomans of salary received during his tenure at the Social Security Organization, and 135 lashes. However, a final ruling has not yet been issued for this case, and it is currently in the appeals stage. Although the Islamic Consultative Assembly opposed Mortazavi's appointment as the CEO of the Social Security Organization, he served as the head of this organization for a while at the insistence of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mortazavi had previously held the position of head of the campaign against smuggling goods and currency. On social media, the judiciary's inability to locate Saeed Mortazavi and execute his prison sentence has prompted many reactions and has become a source of humor for some users. Additionally, several Telegram channels and news websites have published images from the streets of Tehran, showing placards and printed papers installed on the walls of some streets, featuring images of Saeed Mortazavi with titles such as 'missing,' 'fugitive,' and 'wanted,' along with some of the accusations against the former Tehran prosecutor. In mid-March of last year, Saeed Mortazavi published a note stating: 'Until now, I have not received any summons or invitation from the execution of sentences; therefore, if any action has been taken without following the legal procedures, I am unaware of it, and it has been done contrary to the law and the usual practices in the execution of sentences and legal procedures.' However, Mostafa Tork Hamdani, a lawyer, posted an image on his Instagram page from the case information system in the Iranian judiciary, announcing that Mortazavi submitted his defense petition to Branch 68 of the Tehran Court of Appeals on March 12 of last year, and he did not consider his lawyer's six-month ignorance of him to be accurate. This lawyer also emphasized: 'I have no doubt that those who claim he is unavailable are trying to play with public opinion.' This lawyer stressed that 'Saeed Mortazavi is thinking of a new game.' Hossein Alizadeh, media advisor to Hassan Rouhani, emphasized in part of his tweet that Saeed Mortazavi 'holds many hidden secrets. Without him, Iran's judicial history over the past decade will remain concealed.'