Halt Imminent Execution of Kurdish Student Habibollah Latifi

Habibollah Latifi’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that he has been served with his client’s execution orders and the Kurdish university student will be hung on Sunday, 26 December.

Habibollah Latifi is a university student from Kurdistan who has been sentenced to death on charge of Moharebeh, enmity with God.  He is currently imprisoned at the Sanandaj Prison.  Several sources have reported Latifi’s various illnesses such as intestinal infection, heart problems, and kidney failure.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran called for an immediate halt to this unfair sentence, and for the case to be reviewed by a judge independent of security forces.  The Campaign believes this ruling must be challenged to bring attention to the ever-increasing influence of intelligence-security forces over  the Iranian Judiciary and in determining outcomes of trials. The Campaign believes these intelligence-security forces are ultimately pushing towards large scale political executions and any silence in the face of such politically-motivated executions could lead to devastating results in the condition of Iranian political prisoners.

Habibollah Latifi was arrested on 23 October 2007, and was transferred to Sanandaj Prison.  News of Latifi’s  execution sentence circulated on 7 June 2010.  His family have requested clemency for him on several occasions, but they have not been successful.

The court’s ruling, in order to justify the charge of Moharebeh, alleges actions by Latifi that he has vehemently denied.  Accusations leveled against Latifi include involvement in several acoustic explosions, as well as filming and photographing them, in the city of Sanandaj.  It also includes an assassination attempt on the life of the Sanandaj Prosecutor, as well as an attack on a local police station. During his trials  Habibollah Latifi strongly denied involvement in any of these events.    His lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, has told Rooz Online news website that his client has repeatedly denied these charges in court and during interrogations.  Latifi told the court and his interrogators that he was not only not involved in the explosion of the Sanandaj Prosecutor’s car and the attack on the police station which killed a police officer, he was not even living in Sanandaj at the time, as he was living in a different location.