Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
Memorial
Omid, a memorial in defense of human rights in Iran
One Person’s Story

Sediq Abdollah Ali (Saliava'i)

About

Age: 48
Nationality: Iran
Religion: Islam (Sunni)
Civil Status: Married

Case

Date of Killing: April 13, 2016
Location of Killing: Gokhlan Village, Penjwin, Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
Mode of Killing: Extrajudicial shooting
Charges: Unknown charge

Human rights violations in this case

Extrajudicial killings

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979, with the murder of Parviz Sayyah Sina, an Anglican Bishop, and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 500 extrajudicial killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.(1)

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran, where one of the first assassinations, that of a Navy Officer, Shahriar Shafiq, took place in Paris in December 1979. These assassinations have taken place in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In too many cases, states have failed to guarantee the victims’ rights to the truth, justice, and remedy; states have revealed little about the assassinations and have not issued arrest warrants. Where there have been arrests and prosecutions, available information reveals a state policy of eliminating perceived enemies. 

Documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm, however, the theory of state committed crimes. In certain cases, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion (The Netherlands, 2018) or arrest (Brussels, 2020; Turkey, 2021) of Iranian diplomats. In limited cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial (Paris 1980 and 1991) and the evidence presented, revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant (the Mikonos Trial in Germany) has been issued for Iran’s then-Minister of Information, Ali Fallahian and the Deputy Minister of Telecommunications, Hossein Sheikh Attar.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad, is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity who ordered the implementation of these crimes. (2). In 1997, the Berlin Criminal Court, in charge of hearing the case of the shooting of Kurdish dissidents in a Berlin restaurant, officially announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s highest-ranking officials had issued the order to carry out the killings. According to the indictment, the decision to commit the murders was made in a committee called the “Special Operations Committee” composed of the President, the Minister of Information and Security (VAVAK), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, representatives of the various security organs and other organizations, and finally, the Leader of the Revolution. 

Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions, and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam (“one whose blood may be spilled, whose life can be taken, without the perpetrator incurring any punishment”) and their sentence is death regardless of where they are [and where you find them].” 

More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders” (Speech broadcast on the state-run Iranian Radio and Television on August 31, 1992, quoted from Asr Iran, August 17, 2006).

Extrajudicial killings have rarely been pursued legally in Iran. The few murders that were followed up on in 1998 , which came to be known as “the Serial (Chain) Murders(3),” have brought to light the involvement and responsibility of the country’s Information officials. Several Ministry of Information agents who were defendants in the Serial Murders case, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy of extrajudicial killings and emphasized that there was planning on an annual basis to carry out these executions, for which a religious decree was issued. There was a budget allocated and there were objectives set, and those who participated in the murders were commended. In a lecture given at [the city of] Hamedan’s Bu Ali University in 1996, Sa’eed Emami, Ministry of Information Deputy Minister for Security Affairs and one of the principal defendants in the Serial Murders case – who was later said by Iranian officials to have committed suicide while in detention – had stressed that the activities of Iran’s security forces were not confined to the country’s borders: “ … We have set the security perimeter within the confines of our borders. [However,] if we see threats infiltrating inside the country from abroad, we will enlarge the perimeter.”

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1) Among the first known murders that occurred a week after the February 1979 Revolution was that of Mr. Parviz (Arastu) Sayyah Sina, the bishop of a church in the city of Shiraz. The assassination of Mr. Shahriar Shafiq, an Imperial Navy officer, in December 1979 in Paris is among the first murders committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran outside the country. ​​These killings continued in the following years inside and outside the country and in various forms.
2) Investigations into the murder of well-known personalities in France, Germany and Switzerland have yielded evidence and documentation showing that the officials and employees of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran acted as accomplices and principals [in the killings]. In France, the Islamic Republic’s Deputy Minister of Post and Telegraph was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for the murder of former Prime Minister Shapur Bakhtiar and his assistant, Sorush Katibeh. In Germany (Berlin), the Islamic Republic’s security agents and agents of the Lebanese Hezbollah were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of four Kurdish opposition leaders. In connection with the latter case, German Judicial authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Ali Fallahian, the then-Minister of Information. 
3) A few days before Mr. Mokhtari’s murder, Dariush Foruhar and his wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, leaders of the People of Iran Party, had been killed in a most heinous manner in their own home. After Mr. Mokhtari’s body was found, the body of Mohammad Ja’far Puyandeh, another well-known literary figure, was discovered in a village near the city of Karaj. These four individuals’ cases was named the “Serial Murders”.
Human rights violations

Based on the available information, the following human rights may have been violated in this case: 

  • The right to liberty and security of the person. The right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 9.1.

  • The right not to be punished for any crime on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time it was committed. 

UDHR, Article 11.2; ICCPR, Article 15, Article 6.2. 

  • The right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation. 

UDHR, Article 12, ICCPR, Article 17.1. 

  • The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the right to change and manifest one’s religion or belief.

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 18.1, ICCPR, Article 18.2; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, Article 1 and Article 6.

In its general comment 22 (48) of 20 July 1993, the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee observed that the freedom to "have or to adopt" a religion or belief necessarily entailed the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert.

  • The right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas.

UDHR, Article 19; ICCPR, Article 19.1 and ICCPR, Article 19.2.

  • The right, as a member of a religious or ethnic minority, to enjoy one’s own culture or to profess and practice one’s own religion. 

UDHR, Article 18; ICCPR, Article 27.

  • The right to equality before the law and the right to equal protection of the law. 

UDHR, Article 7; ICCPR, Article 26.

The right to due process

  • The right to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a competent and impartial tribunal in accordance with law.

ICCPR, Article 14.1 and Article 14.2.

Capital punishment

  • The inherent right to life, of which no one shall be arbitrarily deprived.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Article 3; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 6.1; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, Article 1.1, Article 1.2.

  • The right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.

ICCPR, Article 7; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment, Article 1 and Article 2.

About this Case

Correct/ Complete This Entry

Mr. Sediq Abdollah Ali was not affiliated with any political party. He was killed because he was accompanying a PJAK member on that day.

Information regarding the extrajudicial execution of Mr. Sediq Abdollah Ali, also known as Sediq Saliyava'i, son of Khanum and Abdollah, was obtained from an interview with an informed person (October 27, 2022), an interview with a close acquaintance of Kamal Qader Sadeq, the other victim who was killed with him (April 20, 2021), and relevant judicial documents, including the verdict issued by the Second Criminal Court of Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan, Iraq (August 14, 2017) and the decision of the Kurdistan Region's Court of Appeals (June 24, 2018). It has also been mentioned in other sources such as the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK*) (April 15, 2016), NNS Roj News (August 14, 2017), Firat News Agency (April 13, 2019), and the Kurdistan Human Rights Association (April 13, 2019).

Mr. Sediq Abdollah Ali, a 48-year-old Kurdish man from Penjwin in the Sulaymaniyah province of Iraqi Kurdistan, was married with five children and had basic education. He was a retired forest ranger from Penjwin and worked in construction. (Interview with the Boroumand Center, October 27, 2022)

An informed acquaintance has confirmed that Mr. Sediq Abdollah Ali was not affiliated with any political party and was known as a "social and popular" person. He was dedicated to resolving issues and "mediating between people. (Interview with the Boroumand Center, October 27, 2022)

Background of Extrajudicial Killings by the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of politically motivated violence in Iran and around the world. Since the 1979 Revolution, Islamic Republic operatives inside and outside the country have engaged in kidnapping, disappearing, and killing a large number of individuals whose activities they deemed undesirable. The actual number of the victims of extrajudicial killings inside Iran is not clear; however, these murders began in February 1979 and have continued since then, both inside and outside Iran. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has so far identified over 540 killings outside Iran attributed to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Dissidents have been assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic outside Iran in countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, India, and Pakistan in Asia; Dubai, Iraq, and Turkey in the Middle East; Cyprus, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Great Britain in Europe; and the United States across the Atlantic Ocean. In most cases, there has not been much published, and local authorities have not issued arrest warrants. But documentation, evidence, and traces obtained through investigations conducted by local police and judicial authorities confirm the theory of state committed crimes. In some instances, these investigations have resulted in the expulsion or arrest of Iranian diplomats. In a few cases outside Iran, the perpetrators of these murders have been arrested and put on trial. The evidence presented revealed the defendants’ connection to Iran’s government institutions, and an arrest warrant has been issued for Iran’s Minister of Information.

The manner in which these killings were organized and implemented in Iran and abroad is indicative of a single pattern which, according to Roland Chatelin, the Swiss prosecutor, contains common parameters and detailed planning. It can be ascertained from the similarities between these murders in different countries that the Iranian government is the principal entity that ordered the implementation of these crimes. Iranian authorities have not officially accepted responsibility for these murders and have even attributed their commission to internal strife in opposition groups. Nevertheless, since the very inception of the Islamic Republic regime, the Islamic Republic officials have justified these crimes from an ideological and legal standpoint. In the spring of 1979, Sadeq Khalkhali, the first Chief Shari’a Judge of the Islamic Revolutionary Courts, officially announced the regime’s decision to implement extrajudicial executions and justified the decision: “ … These people have been sentenced to death; from the Iranian people’s perspective, if someone wants to assassinate these individuals abroad, in any country, no government has any right to bring the perpetrator to trial as a terrorist, because such a person is the implementing agent of the sentence issued by the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Therefore, they are Mahduroddam and their sentence is death regardless of where they are.” More than 10 years after these proclamations, in a speech about the security forces’ success, Ali Fallahian, the regime’s Minister of Information, stated the following regarding the elimination of members of the opposition: “ … We have had success in inflicting damage to many of these little groups outside the country and on our borders.”

At the same time, various political, judicial, and security officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran have, at different times and occasions, confirmed the existence of a long term government policy for these extrajudicial killings and in some cases their implementation. 

Read more about the background of extrajudicial killings in the Islamic Republic of Iran by clicking on the left hand highlight with the same title.

Mr. Sediq Abdollah Ali’s Extrajudicial Execution 

According to available information, Mr. Sediq Abdollah Ali was killed by seven gunshots between 6 and 7 p.m. on April 14, 2016, near the Gokhelan Bridge (also known as the Great River Bridge) in the Penjwin district of Kurdistan, Iraq. (Interview with the Boroumand Center, October 27, 2022; Roj News website, August 14, 2017; Kurdistan Human Rights Association, April 13, 2019)

On April 14, 2016, two Iranian citizens contacted Kamal Qader Sadeq, an active member of PJAK, intending to assassinate him. They proposed a meeting to discuss the construction of a cattle farm on his land as a pretext for their visit. Sediq Abdollah Ali, a long-time colleague and friend of Kamal Qader in the field of forestry, was present at the meeting in an advisory capacity. The perpetrators, driving a white rented Sportage SUV with Iraqi Sulaymaniyah license plates, drove the victims to the cattle farm construction site and then shot them both on the way back. (Interview with a close acquaintance of Kamal Qader, April 20, 2021)

The two suspects were arrested after the assassination when they tried to flee and refused to stop at an Asayesh (the Kurdistan Region's internal security agency) checkpoint. Both suspects confessed in detail how they gathered information on Kamal Qader Sadeq as part of a carefully planned and long-term operation. Items such as sacks and plastic handcuffs were also found in their belongings. (The legal defense brief from the victims' lawyer to the court, Interview with a close acquaintance of Kamal Qader, April 20, 2021.)

An informed source has revealed the motive behind the murder of Sediq Abdollah Ali to the Boroumand Center. The two suspects in court have confessed that the operation was designed to assassinate Kamal Qader Sadeq. Sediq Abdollah Ali was killed solely to ensure that the killers' identities remained unknown. (Interview with an informed person, October 27, 2022)

Sediq Abdollah Ali's body was found at around 7 p.m. near the Great River, near the town of Penjwin. His family learned of the situation when hospital staff answered their father's cell phone. Sediq Abdollah Ali was shot three times in the heart and four times in the right arm and shoulder. (Interview with an informed person, October 27, 2022)

Sediq Abdollah Ali's family received his body from the Penjwin hospital on the same day and buried him in the "Rawga" cemetery in Penjwin. (Interview with the Boroumand Center, October 27, 2022)

The Kurdistan Regional Officials’ Reaction

The Sulaymaniyah police arrested the perpetrators of the murder of Sediq Abdollah Ali at the Siranband border the day after the assassination and transferred them to Sulaymaniyah City. (Interview with a close associate of Kamal Qader Sadeq, April 20, 2021)

The Second Criminal Court of Sulaymaniyah held six trial sessions for the suspects involved in the murder of Sediq Abdollah Ali and his friend following the arrest of the murderers. The court sessions were conducted in the presence of the accused, their lawyers, and five witnesses. (Firat News Agency, April 13, 2019)

The defendants have denied the murders in court, claiming that an Iranian named "Ali" did the shooting and killing and then fled the scene. However, the Second Criminal Court in Sulaimaniyah rejected this claim. After hearing the plaintiffs' claims and witness testimonies, and considering the defendants' contradictory confessions, their lawyer's defense, and forensic reports, the court rejected the defendants' claim that a person named Ali was responsible for the murders. The court sentenced the two defendants to death by hanging and confiscated their movable and immovable property ("chattels" and "real property") according to Article 2** of Law No. 3 of 2006 (Anti-Terrorism Law of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq). ( verdict of the second Criminal Court of Sulaymaniyah, August 14, 2017; interview with a close associate of Kamal Qader Sadeq, April 20, 2021; defense brief of the lawyers of Sediq Abdollah Ali and his friend).

Following the defendants' appeal, the Appeal Court of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq upheld the verdict of the first instance on June 24, 2018. (Kurdistan Region of Iraq Court of Appeal Decision, June 24, 2018)

Since the death sentence is not applied in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the execution was not carried out and the defendants were imprisoned for life in Mo'askar Salam Prison in Sulaymaniyah. (Interview with a close associate of Kamal Qader Sadeq, April 20, 2021)

The Iranian Officials’ Reaction

According to available information, the Iranian consulate did not openly support the two defendants. However, the Iranian government pressured the security officials of the province of Sulaimaniyah and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to extradite the defendants involved in the murder of Sediq Abdollah Ali and his friend to Iran. (Defense Letter of the Victims' Families, Firat News Agency, April 13, 2019)

The Assassins: Kamal Qader Sadeq was the main target of the assassination. His friend, Sediq Abdollah Ali, was killed only to ensure that our identities would remain unknown.

Familys’ Reaction

Forty days after the arrest of the perpetrators, the family of Sediq Abdollah Ali filed a legal complaint against the two detainees at the police station in Penjwin, hiring a lawyer to represent both victims in the case. (Interview with a source by the Boroumand Center, October 27, 2022)

In the legal brief submitted by the family's lawyer to the court, it was noted that the defendants' confession did not indicate any personal issues with the victims. The brief described the act as "not a regular murder but a political assassination." Furthermore, a source underscored that Sediq Abdollah was not affiliated with any political party. He was simply an ordinary and innocent person who was killed solely because of his friendship with Kamal Qader Sadeq, a prominent political activist. (Interview with a source by the Boroumand Center, October 27, 2022; Text of the brief submitted by the family's lawyer)

Impacts on Family

According to the available information, Sediq Abdollah Ali was a very social person, and his assassination caused immense pain to his entire family, relatives, and even the people of his town. After his assassination, his family faced severe economic challenges. Even after eight years, his children and especially his wife are still deeply affected by the incident. (Interview with a source by the Boroumand Center, October 27, 2022)

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*The Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) is a leftist organization founded in January 2004 to create a "democratic-ecological and gender-liberated society" within a democratic and federal Iranian framework that includes autonomy for ethnic minorities. The organization is engaged in an armed conflict with the Iranian government.
**Article 2: The following acts are considered as terrorism and are punishable by death: 2 - Terrorism motivated by political reasons, ideology, or labeling someone as an infidel.

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