The Death of the Judge of the Summer 1988 Executions and Member of the 'Death Committee'; Who Was Hossein Ali Niri?

Hossein Ali Niri, the Sharia judge of the 1988 executions and a member of the 'Death Committee' who sentenced hundreds of political and ideological prisoners to death, has passed away. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of the judiciary of the Islamic Republic, referred to Niri as a 'former official of the judiciary' in a condolence message on Thursday, April 14, stating that he had been ill for a long time. He attributed this illness to 'many years of service' to the Islamic Republic and the judiciary. Hossein Ali Niri was 69 years old at the time of his death, and the exact time of his death has not been disclosed. Niri's name was mentioned last December as one of those injured during the assassination of two Supreme Court judges, Mohammad Mogheiseh and Ali Razini, at the Justice Palace, but judiciary officials denied this claim, asserting that Niri was not present at the time of the assassination. Earlier reports indicated that he had been sent to a hospital in Germany for treatment in 2023, but neither these reports were confirmed nor was any information released about his illness. Iranian political and civil activists had intended to file lawsuits against this former judicial official for his involvement in the executions of dozens of political prisoners. Hossein Ali Niri had held significant judicial positions over the past four decades, including the presidency of the Special Courts of Article 49, the presidency of the Supreme Judicial Court, and as an advisor to the head of the judiciary. However, his most notable legacy is his role in the summer 1988 executions. As a Sharia judge, he, along with Morteza Eshraqi (the then Tehran prosecutor), Ebrahim Raisi (the then deputy prosecutor), and Mostafa Pourmohammadi (the then representative of the Ministry of Intelligence at Evin Prison), were the four judicial officials and key figures of the 'Death Committee.' This committee, under the command of Ruhollah Khomeini, the then leader of the Islamic Republic, re-tried thousands of political and ideological prisoners who were serving their sentences in prisons and executed them on political charges. The bodies of those executed, many of whom were members of the imprisoned Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization and leftist and communist groups, were secretly buried in mass graves. Members of the Death Committee later met with Hossein Ali Montazeri, the then deputy leader of the Islamic Republic, who, according to a leaked audio file from this meeting, referred to the 1988 massacre as a 'historical crime' and stated: 'In my opinion, the greatest crime committed in the Islamic Republic from the beginning of the revolution until now has been carried out by you. In the future, you will be remembered as criminals in history.' Human rights activists claim that the Islamic Republic executed these prisoners without any legal process and that they had no new charges against them. In an interview in 2022, Niri claimed in response to a question about why political prisoners were retried and many executed in 1988: 'They were not tried for the same case; they caused disturbances in prison again.' He defended the actions of the 'Death Committee' by claiming that the situation in Iran in 1988 was 'crisis' and 'special,' adding: 'In this crisis situation, what should be done? A decisive verdict must be issued. The one who manages the court and has the matters in hand must resolve the issue. In this situation, you cannot run the country with 'I adore you and I sacrifice myself for you.' Hossein Ali Niri had previously played a role in the trial and execution of opponents and critics of the Islamic Republic in the early years after the 1979 revolution, including issuing the death sentence for Iranian journalist Simon Farzami in 1980 on charges of 'espionage.' Farzami was executed by firing squad in Evin Prison on December 18 of that year, and his body was handed over to his family.