The Prison Sentence of Habib Sasanian, Political Activist, 'Reduced'

Reports indicate that Branch 26 of the East Azerbaijan Court of Appeals has reduced the sentence of Habib Sasanian, a political activist, from ten years to four years in response to his appeal against the conviction for espionage and forming the separatist group 'GAMO'. Sasanian had previously been sentenced to ten years in prison by Branch 3 of the Tabriz Revolutionary Court. He was arrested on May 15, 2016, by the Intelligence Department of Ardabil and remained in detention for sixteen months until his temporary release on bail. The Chief Justice of East Azerbaijan had announced in June 2016 the arrest of a six-member espionage group named 'GAMO', which allegedly provided classified and confidential information to the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Other detainees included Mehdi Amir Nejad Qasemi, Ismail Fakhimi, Hamid Taqafi, Babak Avand, and Ali Rezaei, all of whom were released on bail. Initially, a temporary detention order and then a one billion tomans bail were issued for Sasanian's temporary release, which was reduced to three hundred million tomans after a sixty-day hunger strike, one week of which was a dry hunger strike. Naghie Mahmoudi, a lawyer and former attorney for Azerbaijani activists residing in Germany, stated in an interview with Radio Farda regarding Sasanian's conviction that 'the judges of Branch 26 of the East Azerbaijan Court of Appeals confirmed the ruling from Branch 3 of the Tabriz Revolutionary Court by reducing the ten-year sentence to four years, while explicitly stating in the ruling that the appellant (Sasanian) has denied leadership of the GAMO group from the outset of the preliminary investigations, and the court found no evidence presented by the Intelligence Department to support his leadership of the group.' Mahmoudi noted that the charges of espionage and providing classified documents were based on allegations that were not substantiated in the reports or investigations of the Intelligence Department or in the ruling itself, thus rendering the heavy sentence of four years in prison for Habib Sasanian legally unfounded. He also mentioned that 'the court has issued lighter sentences for the other defendants in the case.'