A video of the judicial trial of three men involved in the brutal killing of a young Iranian Basiji has been circulating on social media, with confessions from the accused on how they murdered Seyed Ruhollah Ajamian, swayed by foreign media propaganda.
Faraan: Karami, Husseini, and Farzam Nia who were involved in the cold-blooded murder of the young Basiji told the judges hearing the case that the violence perpetrated by them and others across the country was due to “incitement from foreign media”. Ajamian was stabbed to death by a group of rioters armed with cold weapons in early November in Karaj city, the capital of central Alborz province. Soon after, viral photos and videos of the gory incident showed the young man lying on a street with a blood-stained body and his Basiji uniform torn off, sending shock waves across the country.
A 23-second video showed one of the rioters ruthlessly dragging him even as others hit him with hard objects and kicked him with their boots. During the trial, Mohammad Mahdi Karami, one of the accused, said they were “deceived” (by foreign media propaganda) and aggressively overactive.” In the video, describing how he and his accomplices killed Ajamian, he told the judge: “I heard someone say there is a Basiji man out there. I turned around and saw he had fallen to the ground and three people were surrounding him and beating him.”
The young man tried to run away, Karami said, going on to explain in detail how the group of rioters snatched the life out of him. Iranian lawmakers urge the Judiciary to severely punish all those involved in recent riots across the country, both as agents on the ground and inciters. “Everyone was hitting him with stones, knives, even bare hands. I can say there were at least 30 to 40 people hitting and stabbing him. I saw knives of different sizes and shapes. Some had brass knuckles (fist-load weapons). Some had stones in their hands and others had nothing. Their attitudes were weird,” he said.
“I hit him with a stone on his head, and then punched his head three times. He fell to the ground. As soon as he fell to the ground, a guy was kicking him violently on his side and trunk,” Karami hastened to add, giving vivid details of the incident. “I also kicked him on his leg and two times on his knee. Then I saw someone approach and stab him three to four times in his stomach, I cannot recall precisely how many times.” Karami also confessed that he dragged Ajamian on the asphalt, saying he did not know whether he was still alive or had died at that point. Medical reports confirmed that he was alive at the time when he was still being attacked and dragged and eventually succumbed on his way to the hospital.
Mohammad Husseini, who Karami and others identified as the one who “stabbed Ajamian two or three times”, told the judge about his attack on the victim. “At first, I grabbed a few stones and shoved them at the young man, unintentionally, but fortunately I missed him,” he said, without remorse. In an attempt to defend himself and make the story sound “less violent”, he said he then took out a knife which he usually uses to plant flowers at the graves of his mother and father.
“I took the knife and pushed it downwards on his stomach and it penetrated the size of a thumb, but I did not stab him!” A third defendant, Farzam Nia also confessed to stabbing Ajamian in the right shoulder and then running away. The video of the trial in the Persian language showed at least a dozen young men present in the courtroom, who confessed to their role in the killing of Ajamian, with some asking for forgiveness, saying they were “carried away” due to foreign media incitement.
By Hiba Morad
