Iran on Tuesday hanged two young men on charges related to nationwide protests in January, as rights groups accused authorities of subjecting them to torture and an unfair trial.
Iran in October also arrested one of the most prominent lawyers defending protesters in the case, Amirsalar Davoudi.
The Iranian judiciary said that Maleki and Ebrahimi had been hanged over “brutal and atrocious actions (that) led to the martyrdom of four police officers” and that their death sentences had been upheld by the supreme court, according to the Mizan news agency.
It said the entire case has been marked by “torture, forced confessions and gross violations of due process in this case”, with authorities using “the deaths of four security officers to justify these executions, although none of those executed were charged with murder”. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) which also confirmed the executions, said defendants and their lawyers had limited access to case files and noted “allegations that pressure and torture were used during the investigation”.
