IranWire Exclusive: Interview with Cellmate of Slain Political Prisoner

The cellmate of a young political prisoner brutally murdered has talked to IranWire about the horrific ordeal at Fashafuyeh Prison.

Alireza Shir Mohammad Ali, 21, who was also known by the name Saman, was stabbed to death on June 10 by two criminals at the prison serving sentences for drug-related charges.

Barzan Mohammadi, also a political prisoner at the facility, which is also known as Greater Tehran Penitentiary, was arrested in 2018 during protests at Gushkhani, a village in Sarvabad County in Kurdistan province, and was sentenced to six years in prison by the infamous Revolutionary Court Judge Abolghasem Salavati. On March 14, Mohammadi and Shir Mohammad Ali went on hunger strike to protest against their confinement and the prison’s failure to separate prisoners of conscious from dangerous criminals — a practice required as part of rules set out by Iran’s Prison Organization. Their hunger strike lasted 60 days, but none of their demands were met. And, in the end, Shir Mohammad Ali became a victim of exactly what he was protesting against.

Following his murder, there were reports that Barzan Mohammadi would be transferred to Evin Prison, claims that authorities quickly denied.

IranWire talked to Barzan Mohammadi at Fashafuyeh Prison about the rumors of his transfer to Evin, the murder of his cellmate and how he was feeling several days after the attack on and murder of his cellmate.

 

A few days ago your lawyer was quoted as saying that you would be transferred to Evin Prison, but this report was later denied. What is the situation for you at the moment?

I am still in Fashafuyeh Prison. Every day prison officials make promises about transferring me but nothing is happening. Every day I say to prison guards if I am going to Evin on that day then they should tell me so I will not buy food from the prison buffet, and every day they tell me to buy the food and say they will let me know when the time comes. I am completely in limbo. For the moment, because the news of Saman’s murder is still very big, prison officials are not treating us harshly until it blows over. They are just killing time.

 

You shared a cell with Alireza Shir Mohammad Ali. In your view, how and why was he was murdered?

A few days before the murder, threats from Saman’s two murderers, Hamid Reza Shojaei and Mohammad Reza Khalili, became more serious. The two were tired of being in Fashafuyeh Prison. They had been in their cell for more than a year and a half. And in addition, they also had lost a large income they had made while in Rajaei Shahr Prison through scamming people by their mobile phones. [The pair sent people text messages informing them that they had won cash prizes, and requested their bank details so that they could supposedly deposit the prize money into their accounts.] The prisoners made efforts to get back to Rajaei Shahr, but they did not get anywhere. They told us to our face: “We need to hit somebody so that they will transfer us from this prison to somewhere else.” But we did not expect that they would hit one of us political prisoners. We thought that, for instance, they would strike the officer on duty. Just one day before Saman’s murder, they directly told the ward’s guard officer: “We are going to hit somebody so that we can be transferred to another prison.”

The day they made this threat the guard officer did not allow the pair to go out for their daily outing in the yard. He also distinctly told prison employees to keep the two in their cells. But by the next day, the day of the murder, the guard officer had changed. Another one by the name of Imani had replaced him and he allowed them into the yard to get air.

The statement the prison issued says they were in the yard for just five minutes. Do you know anything about this?

That day Mohammad Reza and Hamid Reza were out of their cells getting air from 6pm to 8:20pm. The statement by the prison officials that these two murderers were out of their cell for only five minutes is a total lie. On that day, the two murderers were taking drugs both in their cell and in the yard. We don’t know how they so easily get these drugs when every prisoner’s possessions are checked.

While the two murderers were in yard, Imani came to deliver the dinner pot. He gave the key to our hallway to two prisoners but he himself did not enter the hallway. Block 11 is divided in two parts by a fence. On one side, there are dangerous prisoners, like the two murderers of Saman. The other side is for us political prisoners and for those sentenced for financial crimes. 

Saman’s murderers are no longer there. Perhaps they succeeded in getting what they wanted with his murder.

Most of the time, when the guard officer wants to open the door to our hallway, he would push back dangerous prisoners into their cells and locks their doors. On that day he did not do this. This had happened a few months ago as well. These same two prisoners attacked a financial prisoner with a sharp stick or stone rod but, fortunately, it broke and that prisoner escaped.

It was Mohammad Reza Khalili, Saman’s main murderer, who took the dinner pot from the guard officer and walked to our room to supposedly give it to us. He opened the door and told Saman, “Come to our room for a few moments. I have something to tell you.” Saman, me, and a few Ahvazi prisoners who were fasting were watching TV in the room. Exactly a few seconds after Saman went to the cell of these two, we heard him screaming. “Why are you stabbing me, Mohammad Reza?” he was shouting. “What have I done? Help! Help!”

When we rushed to their cell, we saw Saman on the bed, covered in blood. They had stabbed Saman in the chest.

 

What did the prison officials do?

A few moments later the guard officer entered the cell and when he saw the scene he pushed us into our cell and ran away. We were locked up for several minutes and were shouting for the officer to come. Hamid Reza Shojaei, the murderer’s accomplice, who had also struck Saman’s body once or twice, was standing outside their cell with a very large rod made from the stone in the bathroom to prevent us from entering.

After a few more stabs to finish off Saman, at last people were able to enter the cell and drag Saman to another cell. Shojaei dropped the rod and, to deceive the CCTV, he helped us take Saman to the clinic. As we heard later, Shojaei told the interrogator that he had done nothing and had just helped Saman. A few days later, the guard officer who was on duty that day came to say goodbye. He told us that he had been transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj.

 

What did the prison officials do in the days following the murder of Shir Mohammad Ali?

In those few days prison and judiciary officials came to our ward several times and repeatedly examined the crime scene. We heard from them that, according to Farzadi, the chief warden of Fashafuyeh, Saman had been alive when he arrived at the hospital and died a few hours later, whereas earlier they had said that he had died on the way to hospital.

They also interrogated me a few times about the murder and constantly asked me about the quarrel between Saman and the two murderers. I repeatedly told them that there was no quarrel. We heard that, during interrogations, Mohammad Reza Khalili had offered different alibis [to eliminate him from being accused of] committing the murder. One time he said that he had given his phone number to Saman to call his daughter and ask her to send some money to her father but Saman had used the opportunity to “flirt” with his daughter. The daughter is an adolescent and Saman had only called her to help Mohammad Reza.

Another time Khalili told another inmate: “I wanted to kill you but killed Saman by mistake.” And yet another time he claimed that Saman owed him money. But it is very clear that they committed this crime so that they would be transferred to another prison. All judicial and prison officials are guilty in this tragedy.

 

So who do you believe holds responsibility for this crime?

First of all, they must not keep political prisoners in the same prison as criminals jailed for drug crimes. And if they do imprison political prisoners with these dangerous criminals, then at least they should implement strict security procedures, but they have not done this. In this prison we are denied the least amount of security measures.

Not one day goes by in this ward or other wards at Fashafuyeh Prison without these dangerous criminals hurting prisoners of conscious and political prisoners. Nobody takes responsibility for this situation. Instead, they reduce the whole thing to personal quarrels.

Last year Soheil Arabi, another political prisoner in Fashafuyeh, was in the same cell as the two that murdered Alireza Shir Mohammad Ali. The two tried to hurt Soheil as well but after everybody heard him shouting they sent him to another ward. Now we, the political prisoners at Block 11 of Fashafuyeh Prison, live in extreme terror. I cannot sleep at nights because I am constantly haunted by nightmares about the scene of Saman’s murder. For days after the murder, I was washing Saman’s blood from the walls and the sheets.

And for the last few days I have not heard anything about Seyyed, another cellmate and a close friend of Saman, who at the last moment, removed his body from the grasp of the two murderers. I am worried about him.

 

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Political Prisoners Demand Justice for Murder of Fellow Inmate, June 20, 2019

More Violence in Tehran Prison as Judge Accuses Dervishes of Being “Rioters”, June 20, 2019

"My Son Was My Reason to Live. They Took Him Away from Me”, June 15, 2019

Political Prisoner Murdered While Awaiting Appeal, June 12, 2019

Riots Endanger Lives of Political Prisoners, May 10, 2019

200 Dervishes Remain in Prison, February 14, 2019

Gharchak Prison: Pardons Are Preceded by Teargas, Pepper Spray and Clubs, February 19, 2019

A Young Iranian’s Memory of Torture, Humiliation and Urine, January 29, 2019

Prison Life and the Big Business of Smuggled Knives, December 14, 2018

Expired and Counterfeit Medicine for Prisoners, November 23, 2018

Gonabadi Sufi Dies in Prison, March 5, 2018