Shahrzad Shahbazi, an attorney and one of the lawyers for the defendants in the Isfahan Alikhani Square case, rejected the claims of state media that the executed protesters in this case were killers. According to Voice of America, she wrote in an Instagram story on Saturday, 10 October 2026, that the charge of killing officers was not in the sentence handed down to any of the defendants in this case, and that no defendant was ever formally informed of such a charge.
The lawyer also explained that the Revolutionary Court has no jurisdiction over a murder charge and that this court never examined such a matter. Her remarks came after state media, particularly in the wake of criticism over the executions of Alireza Sepahi and Alireza Raisi, portrayed the two young men as the perpetrators of the killing and burning of officers.
State media's new claim after the executions
Shahbazi referred to an interview with a woman who introduced herself as the wife of one of the officers killed in Alikhani Square and who said she was present at the pre-dawn execution of several defendants. According to the lawyer, her presence at the carrying out of a sentence that was not retribution (qisas) raises questions. The legal organization Dadban, citing Voice of America, also described attributing murder to the defendants after the sentence was issued and carried out as a distortion of the case and a violation of the presumption of innocence.
According to the case's lawyer, the Revolutionary Court sentenced the Alikhani Square protesters to death without a murder charge, and after executing them the government called them killers.
Background to the Alikhani Square case
The case goes back to the clashes of 8 January 2026 in Malek-Shahr, Isfahan, during the nationwide January uprising. Officials of the Islamic Republic say four special-forces and Basij personnel were killed in the clashes. According to Voice of America, 59 protesters were arrested in this case, 12 were sentenced to death and 23 to between five and 10 years in prison.
At least six defendants in this case have been executed so far: Erfan Esfandiari and Gol-Mohammad Mohammadi, an Afghan national, in late June–July; Abolfazl Sepahi Badjani and Amirhossein Safari Hosseinabadi on 28 July; and Alireza Sepahi and Alireza Raisi in the early hours of Monday, 5 October, in Dastgerd prison in Isfahan. Alireza Sepahi's family says CCTV footage shows he was elsewhere at the time of the incident, but according to Voice of America the judge in the case convicted him without examining this evidence, and his request for a retrial was also rejected without a hearing.
According to Voice of America, Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, expressed concern about violations of the right to a fair trial in this case after the two young men were executed. After Alireza Sepahi's execution, his wife, Mahshad Keshani, was also put under interrogation pressure in prison to deny her marriage to him.
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