June 14, 2020 | The Jerusalem Post

Exile Iranians, Reporters without Borders want cleric arrested for torture

Kaveh Moussavi, an exile Iranian, told the German Die Welt paper that Mansouri was involved in a crime operation that caused “the murder and ultimately the torture of at least one person.”
June 14, 2020 | The Jerusalem Post

Exile Iranians, Reporters without Borders want cleric arrested for torture

Kaveh Moussavi, an exile Iranian, told the German Die Welt paper that Mansouri was involved in a crime operation that caused “the murder and ultimately the torture of at least one person.”

The effort to apprehend an alleged Iranian regime human rights violator heated up Thursday when the NGO Reporters without Borders filed a criminal complaint in Germany to secure the arrest of judge Gholamreza Mansouri.

Christophe Deloire, secretary general of Reporters without Borders, tweeted on Thursday: “@RSF_inter and RSF Germany just filed a complaint against Gholamreza Mansouri, an Iranian judge responsible for the arrest and torture of at least 20 journalists in 2013, who is currently in #Germany. The prosecutor must not let him escape #justice! #NoImpunity! @ReporterOG.”

The United Kingdom-based lawyer Kaveh Moussavi said he contacted the German authorities about pursuing a prosecution case against Mansouri, according to The Times.

Moussavi told the British paper that Mansouri had overseen the torture of suspects.

“We have managed to secure two witnesses whose credibility I have thoroughly checked,” Moussavi said.

Moussavi, an Iranian in exile, told the German Die Welt paper that Mansouri was involved in a crime operation that caused “the torture and ultimately the murder of at least one person.”

Mansouri is believed to be in Germany at an institute run by German-Iranian Majid Samii, a neurosurgeon, who has strong ties with the Islamic of Republic regime in Tehran. Mansouri, who is facing a corruption case in Iran, is charged with taking €500,000 in bribes. Exiled Iranians protested outside of the institute in Hanover in the German state of Lower Saxony.

In 2018, Germany issued a visa to Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi to receive treatment at Samii’s clinic in Hanover.

Critics accused Shahroudi of mass murder. He headed Iran’s judiciary system from 1999 to 2009 and imposed executions on 2,000 people, including adolescents. Shahroudi died in December, 2018.

The director of Samii’s institute said the claim that Mansouri is at the clinic is “fake news.”

When The Jerusalem Post asked the German Foreign Ministry about Mansouri, a spokesman said the “ministry does not comment on individual visa cases.”

Benjamin Weinthal is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal

Issues:

Issues:

Iran Iran Human Rights Iran Sanctions Sanctions and Illicit Finance

Topics:

Topics:

Germany Iran Islam Non-governmental organization Tehran The Jerusalem Post United Kingdom