ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An Iranian detained during the nationwide anti-government protests in January was executed on Monday, Tehran’s state media reported after three co-defendants in the same case were executed in recent days.
Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said “one of the enemy elements” named Ali Fahim had “trespassed on prohibited military sites to seize the armory and steal military weapons” in the January protests. The agency said the sentence was carried out “after the case was reviewed and the sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court.”
On Sunday, two co-defendants in the same case, Mohammad Amin Biglari and Shahin Vahed-Paras, were also executed, according to the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency, which claimed they had attempted to attack a “classified military site” in Tehran. On Thursday, Amirhossein Hatami, a 19-year-old protester, was also hanged following his conviction in the same case tied to alleged attacks on a Basij base armory during the January protests.
The executions follow a series of similar actions by Iranian authorities in recent weeks amid the ongoing war with the US and Israel, including cases tied to alleged espionage for Israel, participation in January’s nationwide protests, and links to dissident groups.
Biglari and Vahed-Parast were tried in Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court and convicted on charges of moharebeh - waging war against God, efsad-e-fel-arz - spreading corruption on earth, and arson of public property. The charges stemmed from an early January fire at the Kaveh Basij Base in eastern Tehran.
Their attorney, Hassan Aghakhani, told the pro-reform outlet Emtedad in mid-February that he had been denied access to case files and that the trial concluded within 30 days of the arrests.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International warned in a late March report of the “imminent execution” of Biglari and Vahed-Paras, adding that the "confessions" used for their conviction were extracted under "prolonged solitary confinement and death threats at gunpoint."
In January, Iran faced one of its most significant internal security crises in years, sparked by a wave of anti-government protests following a currency collapse.
Tehran has not released an updated death toll, but the crackdown resulted in the killing of thousands of demonstrators, particularly on January 8 and 9, when security forces used live ammunition, according to Amnesty International and other monitoring groups.
Images of body bags in a morgue in southeast Tehran circulated widely, drawing international attention.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), as of February, over 7,000 protesters had been killed, roughly 11,750 deaths remained under review, and more than 5,800 others were seriously injured.
Additionally, around 53,000 people were arrested, with authorities labeling them as agents of Israel and the United States and vowing to avenge the deaths of security personnel during the unrest.