New Head of Tehran Revolutionary Court Appointed

By the order of the Chief Justice of Tehran Province, Mousa Ghazanfari Abadi, former representative of Bam in the Parliament, has been appointed as the new head of the Tehran Revolutionary Court. The introduction ceremony for Mr. Ghazanfari Abadi and the farewell of Mohammad Mohammadi Azad, the former head of the Revolutionary Court, was held on Saturday morning, June 8. Mousa Ghazanfari Abadi was a representative in the seventh, eighth, and ninth terms of the Parliament and is known to be close to the Stability Front, having failed to secure a seat in the parliamentary elections of March 2016. This member of the Legal and Judicial Commission of the ninth Parliament had strongly criticized the protesters of the 2009 presidential election and the government of Hassan Rouhani in his last speech on Tuesday, May 16. Mr. Ghazanfari Abadi stated, 'When the dangerous thought that we must either reconcile with America or be under constant American pressure is propagated by some officials, as seen in the images of the JCPOA two and three, shouldn't we be worried?' Mohammad Mohammadi Azad, the former head of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, was appointed as the disciplinary prosecutor of judges in 2015 while maintaining his position. Before his appointment as head of the Revolutionary Court, he was a judge in several important cases, including the assassination of Ali Razini, the then head of the Tehran Province Judiciary, and the famous hijacking case by two brothers named Khalid and Rasoul Hardani and their accomplices, which inspired the film 'Height of Post' by Ebrahim Hatamikia. Mr. Mohammadi Azad was also previously the head of Branch 54 of the Revolutionary Court of Appeals, where many political prisoners' sentences were confirmed or altered following the protests against the 2009 presidential election.