Sweden opens trial of Iranian accused of role in 1988 mass murder

A landmark trial of a former Iranian official linked to the decades-old mass execution of dissidents began in Sweden on Tuesday in a war crimes case that could shed light on the new Iranian president’s own alleged role in the deadly purge. 

Prosecutors in Stockholm have accused Hamid Noury of “intentionally taking the life of a very large number of prisoners sympathetic to or belonging to the People’s Mujahedin” in the summer of 1988.

The People’s Mujahedin, also known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), is a now-exiled Iranian resistance group that opposed the Western-backed shah and pushed for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The MEK killed several Americans prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States until 2012.  

In retaliation for the group’s cooperation with the Iraqi army during the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranian regime forcibly disappeared and executed thousands of dissidents affiliated with the MEK in 1988. Amnesty International estimates more than 5,000 political prisoners were killed across 32 cities under the orders of then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini. 

Prosecutors say Noury, who served as an assistant to the deputy governor of Gohardasht Prison, helped carry out scores of executions between July 30 and Aug. 16, 1988. 

He was arrested in the Swedish capital in November 2019 and is charged with war crimes and murder. Swedish authorities are prosecuting the 60-year-old Iranian using the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows for the prosecution of grave crimes committed in another country regardless of whether the suspect is a Swedish national. 

Noury denies any involvement in the killings, according to his lawyer. 

In a statement, Reporters Without Borders praised the work of Swedish investigators and said Noury’s trial “marks both the first time the Mullah regime’s crimes are being tried and the first time that the terrible massacres of 1988 are being tried.” 

A number of senior Iranian officials are accused of involvement in the mass executions, including Iran’s new hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi. Human rights groups say the former judiciary chief helped facilitate the 1988 purge when he served on a four-man “death commission” appointed by Khomeini. 

In June, the United Nations’ top human rights investigator for Iran said he backs a probe of Raisi’s involvement in the mass killings and his office would share evidence with the UN Human Rights Council or any other investigative body.