Iran News Agency Reports Prisoner Died of Abuse

Iran News Agency Reports Prisoner Died of Abuse
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 31, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/middleeast/01iran.html?th&emc=th


CAIRO — In what may be the first admission that a prisoner died from abuse by Iranian prison authorities in the wake of post-election unrest, a semiofficial news service reported Monday that the son of an adviser to a prominent conservative politician had died of “physical stress, conditions of imprisonment, repeated blows and harsh physical treatment.”

The report, by the Mehr News Agency, quoted “informed sources” as saying the medical examiner had determined that Mohsen Ruholamini, 25, died of abuse and neglect after being held in the Kahrizak detention center and then being transferred to Evin prison under “unsuitable conditions.” He was one of hundreds of people arrested as mass protests swept major Iranian cities after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a landslide victory in June, and one of dozens who died.

“As a result of his poor physical condition, at the end of the journey, and after a delay of 70 minutes in transferring him to hospital, he unfortunately died,” said the report by Mehr, which has close ties to conservatives.

The apparent admission of abuse appears to fit squarely with the recent strategy of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, of trying to calm the political crisis that has not let up, and to restore some of his lost credibility, political analysts said.

As a religious and civil leader, he is supposed to be seen as above the political fray and as the embodiment of justice, qualities that analysts and reform supporters say were badly compromised when he sided with the president during the crisis.

The admission — if it is made official and leads to punishment — could also shore up the supreme leader’s support among senior clerics and pragmatic conservative politicians who are upset about the treatment of prisoners, President Ahmadinejad’s attempts to consolidate power and the ayatollah’s handling of the post-election crisis. Mr. Ruholamini’s case helped galvanize their anger.

Mr. Ruholamini’s father, Abdolhossein, was a senior political adviser to Mohsen Rezai, a defeated presidential candidate and former commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards.

Authorities told the elder Mr. Ruholamini on Aug. 9 that his son had died of meningitis. But Mr. Ruholamini, who leads a prestigious scientific center in Tehran, later said that he had found his son’s bloodied and bruised body in a morgue.

On Sunday, one day before the report was released by Mehr, Mr. Ruholamini met privately with Ayatollah Khamenei, where he was assured that those responsible would be held accountable, even if they were part of the system, according to Iranian news services.

If the Mehr report is officially confirmed, it could pave the way for the arrest and conviction of government agents — perhaps even relatively high-ranking prison officials, a step that might be necessary to restore confidence among senior clerics and pragmatic conservatives, political analysts said.

“The supreme leader got what he wants — Ahmadinejad is president now — but he will not allow this conflict to deepen and continue,” said Mustafa Alani, director of security and defense studies at the Gulf Research Center in the United Arab Emirates. “He sees the bad side of this crisis and wants to start a new page.”

When the government tried to silence the post-election conflict through arrests, trials and intimidation, the crisis grew more heated amid a steady stream of charges, including that male and female prisoners had been raped and sodomized, that bodies had been buried in secret graves and that bruised and contorted corpses were being turned over to families.

Leaders of the reform movement said that at least 69 people had been killed during the post-election crackdown, while the government reported that 30 had died.

The president and his allies in the police force, prison system and military have consistently denied all charges of abuse, and they repeated those denials this week.

However, Ayatollah Khamenei ordered the closing of the Kahrizak prison, where several prisoners died, and authorities ordered an investigation into the deaths there.

But with the political crisis not subsiding, and the credibility of the Islamic republic’s system of governance questioned by the general public and the clerical elite, Parliament has begun two investigations into charges of prisoner abuse, and the supreme leader has shifted course, political analysts said.

In what analysts call an attempt to calm the concerns of his more pragmatic conservative allies and senior clerics, Ayatollah Khamenei recently said he did not believe that the opposition had been conspiring with foreign enemies, undercutting the most serious charges against former officials, journalists and academics that have been leveled by Mr. Ahmadinejad and his government.

And in another sign of efforts to soften the edges of the crackdown directed by the president, the judiciary — headed by a rival of Mr. Ahmadinejad — on Monday released Hamzeh Ghalebi, according to Parleman News, a Web site affiliated with conservative members of Parliament who are critical of the president. Mr. Ghalebi, a prominent member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has been very close to Mir Hussein Moussavi, a reform leader and presidential candidate.

Mr. Ghalebi’s health had deteriorated after almost 60 days in solitary confinement, and like others he had been forced to confess, according to a Web site affiliated with Mr. Moussavi.

Another element of Ayatollah Khamenei’s shift in tone was spelled out Wednesday in a meeting with university students, when he vowed that torture and abuse would not go unpunished.

“Be sure that no crime or atrocity will go unpunished, but with issues of that importance the judiciary should rule based on solid evidence,” the supreme leader said, insisting that rumors would not be enough.

But Ayatollah Khamenei was also clear about where he placed the greatest blame for what had convulsed the country since the presidential election, and it was not with the issue of torture or abuse.

“Some people — who tend to turn a blind eye to the oppression of the people, the Islamic establishment and the tarnished reputation of the establishment — seem to portray the Kahrizak issue as the main problem, whereas this on its own is another form of oppression against the nation,” he said.

The bigger problem, he maintained, was the post-election unrest, which he said had tarnished an otherwise valid election — a point millions of Iranians disputed when they took to the streets in protests that were later crushed by the police and armed militias.