Iran prison doctor death suspicious

“Just the night before his death, my child talked to me on the phone, it was around 8 or 9 p.m. He sounded great, very dignified, displaying no sign of someone about to commit suicide,” the senior Pourandarjani said in a telephone interview from his home in Tabriz in northwestern Iran.

“He was even full of hope,” and making plans with friends, the father said.

The next day, the elder Pourandarjani received a call from the commander of Tehran's security forces informing him that his son was in a car accident with a broken leg and needed his consent to have surgery. When he traveled to Tehran, “we found out that that wasn't the case,” the father said.

The body was handed over to the family, and was buried in Tabriz on Sunday, but the father said he never saw the body because he was too grief-stricken. “Our son was part of Iran's elite. He had done his studies. He was finishing his military service. He was a general practitioner and wanted to specialize,” he said in a heavy voice.

Several opposition Web sites raised concerns that Pourandarjani was killed because he knew the conditions of a number of torture victims at Kahrizak, including 24-year-old Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a prominent conservative figure. Rouhalamini's death in late July was the main factor raising anger among government supporters over the abuse.

According to the opposition Web site, Pourandarjani was detained for a week until he agreed to announce the cause of Rouhalamini's death as meningitis rather than from beatings.

Pourandarjani also was interviewed by the parliamentary committee investigating the abuse, according to Mazroui.

The Kahrizak detention facility was used to keep a large number of detainees during the early days of the mass protests that erupted against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which the opposition said was fraudulent. Amid the anger over allegations of torture, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the facility's closure in July, saying it did not meet standards.

1|2

PrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email