by Iran News Wire
Pourmohammadi: Guardian Council’s Choice, A History of Violence and Oppression
After extensive deliberations, Khamenei finally pulled six individuals from the Guardian Council’s magic box, with Mostafa Pourmohammadi being one of them. In this piece, we will take a look at the crime-ridden life of Mostafa Pourmohammadi. Despite being disqualified for the Assembly of Experts election in February 2024, Khamenei had to certify him as a criminal arm this time. Examining Mostafa Pourmohammadi’s life is crucial as, like Raisi, he has always been a trusted confidant of Khomeini and Khamenei. His countless crimes include the rape of imprisoned girls before execution, overseeing the execution of numerous prisoners in Mashhad, and being a member of the Death Committee in 1988.
Who is Mostafa Pourmohammadi?
Mostafa Pourmohammadi is an advisor to the Chief Justice and the Secretary-General of the Combatant Clergy Association. He was one of the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre, in which 30,000 political prisoners were executed.
Before the revolution, Mostafa Pourmohammadi was a student at the Haqqani School in Qom. His father was from Rafsanjan, and his mother was from Yazd. His father was a tailor for clerics in Qom. In late 1979, Mostafa Pourmohammadi was dispatched to Khuzestan province, where he worked as the Revolutionary Prosecutor.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi Key Perpetrator of Iran’s 1988 Massacre (left)
At the age of 20, he issued the execution orders for over 300 prisoners, including 16 and 17-year-olds, in the Bandar Abbas prison. In 1987, during Mohammad Reyshahri’s tenure as Minister of Intelligence, he joined the Ministry of Intelligence.
At 29, during Ali Fallahian’s term as head of the Ministry of Intelligence, he was appointed as Deputy Foreign Minister and Deputy Minister of Intelligence. It was during this time that he joined the Death Committee. During his tenure as Deputy Foreign Minister of the Ministry of Intelligence, the Iranian regime assassinated many opponents abroad, including Dr. Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Kazem Rajavi, Fereydoun Farrokhzad, and Sadegh Sharafkandi. They were among a list of 100 individuals whose physical elimination was approved by the Supreme National Security Council.
In August 2016, Ayatollah Montazeri’s son released an audio tape in which Mostafa Pourmohammadi and other Death Committee members sought Montazeri’s approval for the execution of the remaining political prisoners. Ayatollah Montazeri told the committee that history would remember them as criminals. In early August 1988, Khomeini, through a decree, appointed a four-member committee known as the Death Committee to re-examine the cases of political prisoners who had already been tried and sentenced to imprisonment.
Khomeini emphasized in this decree that anyone who continued to support the MEK (Mojahedin-e Khalq) should be dealt with “with revolutionary rage and anger” and executed. During the 1988 massacre of political prisoners, Mostafa Pourmohammadi was an active member and representative of the Ministry of Intelligence on the Death Committee.
According to Ayatollah Montazeri, he was the main director of all these brutal executions. Mostafa Pourmohammadi decided whether prisoners would live or die after a few questions about their political or religious beliefs.
Pourmohammadi’s Confession to the Massacre
He appeared on a television program and, while defending the 1988 massacre, spoke of his direct role in this slaughter.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi referred to this case as a live case. In the television program “Handwriting,” he called the release of the audio tape of Montazeri’s meeting with the Death Committee in August 2016 a “betrayal.” In this television interview, Pourmohammadi claimed that the reason for Khomeini’s dismissal of Hossein-Ali Montazeri from his position as deputy leader was the meeting with the Death Committee and the publication of its content.
Pourmohammadi considered Montazeri’s opposition to the executions to be a sign of his “ignorance.” Regarding his significant role in the 1988 political prisoner massacre, Mostafa Pourmohammadi said: “I defended the Khomeini’s movement, the mission we had regarding the MEK. When I was the Revolutionary Prosecutor, I issued many indictments against the MEK and sent them to court… many were sentenced, executed, and many other things… and I said this is our religious duty.”
Mostafa Pourmohammadi’s Security and Intelligence Background Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, Mostafa Pourmohammadi has held significant judicial and security positions, including:
- Revolutionary Court Prosecutor in the provinces of Khuzestan, Hormozgan, and Khorasan from 1980 to 1986
- Military Prosecutor of Revolutionary Courts in the western region of the country from 1986 to 1987
- Advisor to the Minister of Intelligence from 1987 to 1990
- Deputy Minister of Intelligence from 1990 to 1991
- Head of Foreign Affairs at the Ministry of Intelligence from 1991 to 1999
- Head of Political and Social Affairs for the Supreme Leader since 2002
- Head of the National Inspection Organization from August 2005 to May 2008
- Minister of Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran from August 2013 to August 2017
- Advisor to the Chief Justice since August 31, 2017
- Minister of the Interior in the ninth government, among other positions held by Mostafa Pourmohammadi.
Human Rights Violations Record During his tenure in various positions, Mostafa Pourmohammadi has been involved in widespread human rights violations, including:
- As the representative of the Ministry of Intelligence in 1988, he was a member of the committee known as the “Death Committee,” which decided the fate of prisoners based on a few questions about their political or religious beliefs. In August and September 1988, several thousand political prisoners in Iran were executed based on Khomeini’s fatwa and the decisions of judicial and intelligence officials. With the release of the audio tape of Ayatollah Montazeri’s meeting with the Death Committee members on August 24, 1988, Mostafa Pourmohammadi was forced to acknowledge his role in the 1988 massacre and said: “We are proud to have implemented God’s order regarding the MEK and stood up against the enemies of God and the nation with strength.”
- According to human rights organizations, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who worked at the Ministry of Intelligence from 1987 to 1999, played a fundamental role in the execution of political prisoners in 1988 and the organized chain murders. In this regard, Human Rights Watch, in a 2005 report titled “Ministers of Murder,” mentioned Mostafa Pourmohammadi’s “direct role” in the “extrajudicial execution” of thousands of political prisoners.
Extrajudicial Executions
In September 1981, Mostafa Pourmohammadi was transferred from Bandar Abbas to Mashhad and became the Chief Prosecutor of Khorasan province. In the third week of December 2002, several young women were executed in Vakilabad prison in Mashhad. Immediately after these executions, some families of the executed girls told their relatives that their daughters had been raped before the execution.
According to evidence obtained from some relatives of three of the executed girls, Sima Matlabi, Mandana, and Mitra Majaverian, they were tried in a few-minute court session without a lawyer and sentenced to execution. A few days after the announcement of Mandana and Mitra Majaverian’s execution, a prison guard visited their families’ homes, offering flowers and sweets, saying that the guards had married their daughters before the execution. Sima Matlabi also wrote on her leg that she had been raped.
According to two political prisoners, one tried in September 1981 and the other in January 1982, Ali Razini was the Sharia judge during this period, issuing all the execution orders for young women. Mostafa Pourmohammadi, as the Revolutionary Prosecutor of the province, oversaw all these executions.
This article was first published by irannewswire
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