According to Hana’s information, these individuals were arrested by the IRGC Intelligence in Sardasht in July 2023 and transferred to an IRGC intelligence detention facility. During their detention, the three were reportedly subjected to extreme physical and psychological torture to extract forced confessions. The defendants, accused of espionage, had no access to legal services or a lawyer, and only after more than three months in custody were they permitted a very brief phone call with their families for the first time.

Idris Ali, Azad Shujaei, and Rasul Ahmad Mohammad were transferred from the security detention center to Orumiyeh Central Prison after eight months of detention. According to an informed source, Idris Ali and Azad Shujaei worked as kolbars at the Sardasht border, while Rasul Ahmad Mohammad, a border trader from Sulaymaniyeh in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, initially denied all charges but, due to inhumane torture and pressure, was forced into making a coerced confession accepting all accusations made by security agents.

According to obtained information, the trial for these three prisoners was held on September 22, 2023, in Branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge “Shahin,” and in early October, the death sentences for all three were announced.

In this context, on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri, in a press briefing regarding the case of the assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, stated without naming these three prisoners that three individuals had been sentenced to death in preliminary rulings, and their cases were in the appeals stage.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the Deputy Minister of Defense and head of the Research and Innovation Department in Iran’s nuclear program, was killed in Absard in December 2020 while leading Iran’s defense innovation organization.

The Hana Human Rights Organization has expressed grave concern about the possible imminent execution of these three individuals amid escalating hostilities between the Iranian government and Israel and urges immediate attention from human rights organizations to prevent retaliatory executions.