Young Prisoner Dies after Beating by Bandar Abbas Prison Forces

A local human rights source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that on August 22, two prisoners in the Youth Ward of the Bandar Abbas Central Prison, after engaging in a scuffle, were handcuffed, footcuffed, blindfolded, and severely beaten by Prison Special Forces in the yard behind the prison Quarantine Ward.

One of the prisoners, Mozaffar Dadi, 21, from the town of Kahnooj, who had arrived at the facility six months earlier on charges of engaging in a brawl, suffered major bleeding. Despite the prisoner’s need for immediate transfer to a hospital outside the facility, he was only superficially treated inside the prison infirmary and transferred to the prison’s Ward 1, where older criminals are kept.

The human rights source claimed that after vomiting blood for three days, Dadi was finally transferred to the prison infirmary on August 24, and from there to Shahid Mohammadi Hospital in Bandar Abbas. However, due to the severity of his injuries and internal hemorrhaging, the prisoner died in prison on the night of August 24.

The source told the Campaign that Dadi’s cellmates were told he died as a result of a drug overdose. The Bandar Abbas Medical Examiner has not yet announced his cause of death. According to the source, Dadi’s relatives are concerned that as a result of pressure by prison authorities, the Medical Examiner’s Office may be forced to state the cause of death as drug overdose, despite the fact that he died as a result of beatings and injuries, internal bleeding, and the prison authorities’ negligence in providing him with timely medical attention. Prison authorities have not yet informed Dadi’s family of his cause of death.