SAMAN NASEEM TO BE RETRIED: Amnesty International

Juvenile offender Saman Naseem has been returned to Oroumieh Central Prison, north-west Iran, where he had been held before to his five-month enforced disappearance. He will be retried by a criminal court in Oroumieh.

 

Saman Naseem was transferred on 19 September from the north-western prison of Zanjan to Oroumieh Central Prison, where he had been held until 18 February 2015, the day before he was scheduled to be executed. Amnesty International understands that he has been scheduled for an appointment with the Legal Medicine Organization for a psychological examination to assess his “mental maturity” at the time of the crime for which he was sentenced to death. This will be used during his retrial before Oroumieh’s Criminal Court One of West Azerbaijan Province.

Saman Naseem in Oroumieh Central Prison

Saman Naseem’s request for a judicial review of his case was granted by the Supreme Court on 22 April, which meant his conviction and death sentence were quashed and that he was entitled to a full retrial. The Head of the Judiciary had already ordered that his execution be stayed on 6 April, but neither his family nor lawyers were given any concrete information about his fate and whereabouts. They inquired repeatedly, but it was only in July that the authorities finally allowed him to make a phone call to his family.
Saman Naseem was sentenced to death in April 2013 by a criminal court in the north-western city of Mahabad, for “enmity against God” (moharebeh) and “corruption on earth.' The Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in December 2013.