Iranian regime acknowledges inmates killed by smoke inhalation in Sharh-e Kord prison fire

                 

 Three weeks after at least eleven Iranian inmates were killed in a prison fire, the Iranian regime has acknowledged the cause of their death had been smoke inhalations.

Mansour Firoozbakht, the head of forensic medicine in Charmahal & Bakhtiari province told the state-run IRNA news agency the inmates died of "smoke inhalation and suffocation due to lack of occasion."

"The corpses of the inmates were given to their families for burial after examination made," he said.

The incident in Shahr-e Kord prison on August 4 happened after the warden ordered a number of prisoners to be punished in a bid to terrorize the inmates who had staged a strike for several days to protest the inhumane living conditions at the prison.

In solidarity with their striking cellmates other prisoners set fire to several mattresses. Instead of putting out the fire, however, prison authorities locked the prison doors and prevented outside help, including efforts by fire-fighters to to knock down a wall to save the prisoners.

The warden and prison guards then left and abandoned the prisoners to be engulfed by the flames.

That evening, the regime’s intelligence officials issued secret orders to the mayor and the General Director of the city's fire fighting organization to censor reports on this atrocity.

After the incident, the Iranian Resistance’s President-elect called for the dispatch of an international fact-finding mission to investigate the catastrophic living conditions of prisoners in Iran.

She said: "This unprecedented atrocity is just one example of the calamities the murderers ruling Iran have imposed on prisoners for many years. The barbarians ruling Iran should be shunned by civilized nations and should face justice for their countless atrocities."