IRAN - Hamid Hosseinnezhad Heydaranlou

IRAN - Hamid Hosseinnejad Secretly Hanged

April 18, 2025:

April 18, 2025 - IRAN. Hamid Hosseinnejad Secretly Hanged

Kurdish Political Prisoner

Iran state media reported the execution of Kurdish political prisoner Hamid Hosseinnejad Haydaranlu today. According to official reports, Behzad Sarkhanlu, deputy prosecutor of Urmia, informed Hamid’s family that he had been transferred from Urmia Central Prison to Tehran and executed. Hamid’s execution was carried out secretly, without his family or lawyer being notified.

Condemning Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu’s execution in the strongest terms, Iran Human Rights calls for greater international efforts to stop the Islamic Republic's execution machine.
IHR Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam stated: "Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydranlu was sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court without observing minimum fair trial standards. His execution is considered an extrajudicial killing and leaders of the Islamic Republic must be held accountable for this crime."

IHR warned about the imminent risk of political prisoner executions over the Easter holidays and called on the international community and countries with diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic to take action to halt and overturn these sentences.

In the first three weeks of April 2025, at least 65 people have been executed in Iranian prisons.

Heydaranlu, a 40-year-old Kurdish political prisoner, was sentenced to death on the charge of baghy (armed rebellion) based on torture-tainted confessions to membership of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the killing of eight security forces.

Following the official news, a source close to Hamid’s family told IHR that Hamid’s execution was carried out in Tehran on Friday, 18 April. “The news of his execution in Tehran took time to reach Urmia. He was probably executed in Tehran. But his case was still pending at Branch 39 of the Supreme Court, which means they weren’t informed of the execution.”

When Hamid’s family asked for his body, they were told “they haven’t sent his body for us to hand over.” According to the source, “the body will never be returned and they will probably be banned from even holding a ceremony.”

A member of Heydranlou’s family told Iran Human Rights on Monday evening that, according to the Urmia prosecutor, the execution had actually been carried out on Friday, and that “Tehran informed Urmia late, and it most likely happened in Tehran, possibly in Evin Prison. Yet the case has just today been sent for review again to Branch 39 of the Supreme Court, meaning even the court was unaware the sentence had been carried out.”

Hamid’s last visit with his family took place on Thursday, 17 April, while he was handcuffed. His last contact with his family was on Friday afternoon when he made a brief phone call in Farsi to just say “I’m alive, follow up on the case.”

Osman Mosayen, the political prisoner’s lawyer, said: “We have filed a request for retrial to stop his execution. Because Hamid is illiterate, he couldn't file the clemency request himself. After the visit, he was returned to solitary confinement.”

The lawyer added: “In 2017, eight border guards were killed in a village in West Azerbaijan Province. In 2022, Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu was arrested at his home in his own village on charges of smuggling goods. Initially, he was charged with smuggling, but later he was accused of involvement in that terrorist attack. Hamid spent 12 months in the solitary confinement cells of the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention centre in Urmia, without access to a solicitor, phone, or his family. Hamid is completely illiterate. The interrogation documents are entirely in the handwriting of the interrogator, and he merely signed them. In his first appearance before the investigator, he explicitly denied the charges, saying, ‘I did not commit this act; on that day, I was abroad.’ The armed clash reportedly occurred around 3 am, but he stated that by 11 am that same day, he had already crossed the border with his family—including his elderly mother, wife, and two children—into Turkey, with valid passports.”

Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu is 40 years old and from the Chaldoran region of Urmia where he was arrested by border forces along with several Afghan nationals on 13 April 2023 After his arrest, he was transferred to the Foreign Nationals Detention Centre and later to Ministry of Intelligence facilities in Urmia. He was held in solitary confinement for 12 months, where he was subjected to physical and psychological torture to compel him to confess to collaborating with the PKK and involvement in the 2017 armed conflict that resulted in the death of eight border forces. Hamid was sentenced to death despite evidence that he was not in Iran at the time of the armed conflict.

https://iranhr.net/en/articles/7486/
https://hengaw.net/en/news/2025/04/article-65