The families of the victims and survivors of the 1988 mass executions in Iran expressed relief after a court in Sweden convicted ex-official Hamid Nouri of murder and other charges in connection with the executions.
Iraj Mesdaghi, a former political prisoner who spent more than 10 years in Iranian prisons between 1981 and 1991, told Radio Farda, "Our voice will be heard more every day," he said. "Nothing can stop our movement for justice, and every day more people will realize what happened in Iran."
Hamid Ashtari, a former political prisoner who together with Iraj Mesdaghi filed the first complaint against Nouri, said in an interview with Radio Farda that "this verdict is a condemnation of the Islamic republic, and this verdict will be a document for future courts."
Nouri, 61, was convicted of committing a "serious crime against international law" and "murder" and sentenced to life in prison, the Stockholm district court said on July 14. Iran condemned the decision, saying it was politically motivated. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said it had "no legal validity."
Esmat Vatanparast, who lost 11 family members in the executions, said after the sentence was announced that President Ibrahim Raisi, who was a chief of Iran's judiciary at the time of the executions and Nouri’s boss, should also be tried.
"I slept many nights with sadness, but today I am happy," Vatanparast added.
Nouri was arrested at a Stockholm airport in 2019 and was charged with war crimes for the mass execution and torture of political prisoners at the Gohardasht prison in Karaj in 1988.
The killings initially targeted members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), a political-militant organization that advocated the overthrow of Iran's clerical regime, but eventually encompassed all left-wing opponents of the regime, including communists, Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists, and others.
Amnesty International estimated that at least 5,000 people were executed on Khomeini's orders, saying in a 2018 report that "the real number could be higher." Iran has never acknowledged the killings.
Sweden's principle of universal jurisdiction allows its courts to try a person on serious charges such as murder or war crimes regardless of where the alleged offenses took place.
Nouri is the only person so far to be tried in the mass executions. He has denied the charges.