Saeed Mortazavi Becomes a Lawyer; Human Rights Violator in Legal Attire

The Yazd Bar Association has issued a "lawyer's license" to Saeed Mortazavi, the former criminal prosecutor of Tehran. The website "Vokala Press" reported that the head of the Yazd Bar Association stated in response to a reporter that "the license was issued after obtaining legal inquiries and receiving positive responses, following legal formalities." According to Article 8 of the Law on the Independence of the Bar Association, "some individuals" with judicial backgrounds can receive a "lawyer's license" from bar associations "under certain conditions." Clause (a) of this article states that the bar association can grant a first-class lawyer's license to those who have ten consecutive or fifteen intermittent years of judicial service and have at least five years of presidency or membership in a court, provided that they have not been disqualified by the Supreme Judicial Disciplinary Court. Saeed Mortazavi, the former prosecutor of Tehran, who also served as the head of the Social Security Organization during Ahmadinejad's presidency, was previously convicted in a corruption case involving the Social Security Organization and was imprisoned for a time. He was a key suspect in the cases of the killing of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian journalist in prison, and the deaths of several protesters during the 2009 protests in the Kahrizak detention center, having always enjoyed the support of senior government officials. Acts of torture, manipulation of judicial files, and fabricating cases against civil, political activists, and journalists are among the recorded points in the controversial history of this "infamous judge" of the Islamic Republic during his tenure in the judiciary. Mortazavi is one of the human rights violators in the Islamic Republic in recent decades who has always enjoyed judicial immunity, and in the case in which he faced "conviction," the subject of the case was related to his tenure as the head of the Social Security Organization, not to the many judicial cases for which he was responsible. Various reports of his violations even led to cases being formed in the Disciplinary Prosecutor's Office for Judges, but they were never pursued seriously. Nevertheless, in the same Social Security case, he was ultimately "acquitted" by the Supreme Court, once again proving that the judiciary of the Islamic Republic is incapable of achieving "justice." Saeed Mortazavi served as the prosecutor of Tehran from 2003 to 2009 and as the deputy prosecutor general from 2009 to 2010. After that, he headed the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters for a while and from 2011 to 2013, he was the head of the Social Security Organization, where his widespread violations led to his conviction, although he was "freed" from this case a few years later. In May of this year, news emerged that Mostafa Torkhamdani, a lawyer, was imprisoned for 91 days due to pursuing the financial case against Saeed Mortazavi, known as "Judge Mortazavi," the then CEO of the Social Security Organization during Ahmadinejad's government. Payman Haj Mahmoudattar, who took over his colleague's case, told the Ham Mihan newspaper on the morning of May 17 that Mortazavi had received a "definitive penal conviction" due to financial issues related to the organization after complaints from some members of parliament and several insurers of the Social Security Organization with the representation of Mostafa Torkhamdani, but he was acquitted of all financial charges in 2022. During Mortazavi's tenure as prosecutor, at least three detainees from the protests of July 2009 were killed in the Kahrizak detention center, and he was one of the main suspects in the case formed regarding this matter. During the 2009 protests, many others were also tortured. Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian journalist, was killed in Evin prison years ago while visiting her family, and her death is directly attributed to Mortazavi's involvement. During the investigation of Mortazavi's financial charges in the Social Security Organization, he was also sentenced to prison, where he spent some time but was released at the first opportunity under the amnesty and reduction granted by Ali Khamenei. This "infamous judge" of the Islamic Republic, whose name is associated with hundreds of political and civil cases as a human rights violator, has received a "lawyer's license" from the Yazd Bar Association to now play the role of a "defense lawyer" in the judiciary of the Islamic Republic.