For many years, except for members of death commissions at Evin and Gohardasht prisons and a few key officials responsible for the massacre, death commission members across Iran remained unidentified. In 2016, with the restart of the movement for justice initiated by the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the MEK launched extensive research and investigations in this area. As a result of the MEK’s supporters within Iran, the PMOI obtained information about the identities of the death commissions in several provinces in Iran.
The latest list includes 86 members of death commissions forming 35 commissions across Iran. These include commissions in 12 provinces, 9 provincial capitals, and 13 towns, as well as officials of urgent trials in western Iran. At the time of the executions, Iran was broken into 24 provinces. Therefore, the latest list includes half of the commissions in half the provinces at that time.
Some of these criminals continue to hold senior key positions in the regime. These officials form 63% of the total number of criminals who are still alive. The presence of these individuals in senior leadership positions is not simply a reward or incentive for their participation in the vast massacre in 1988. More importantly, it is because the administration and running the affairs of the velayat-e faqih system is only possible at the hands of these henchmen and murderers. An eye-opening example of these posts is at the justice ministry. Over the past 29 years (since 1989, a year after the massacre was launched until 2018), except for a four-year period, the minister of justice has been selected from among those who participated in the massacre: Mohammad Esmail Shushtari (1989-2005), Morteza Bakhtiari (2009-2013), Mostafa Pourmohammadi (2013-2017), and Alireza Avai (2017-current).
The List of Commissions
Tehran Province
The death commission in Tehran province adopted decisions for political prisoners held both in Tehran’s Evin prison and Karaj’s Gohardasht prison. This commission was active in Evin and Gohardasht prisons and it is reported that the members used a helicopter to repeatedly travel between the two prisons to conduct trials and executions of prisoners.
In addition to the official members of the commission, in the city of Karaj, Naderi was the prosecutor and Fateh (or Fatehi), the head of the city’s intelligence office at the time, had an active role in the execution of political prisoners who resided in Karaj. Davoud Lashgari, one of the most active henchmen involved in the killings of political prisoners in Gohardasht was also seen on many occasions at the sessions where execution sentences were issued.
The identities of the primary members of the death commission in Tehran and other cities are published by the MEK.
