Amirhasan Akbari Monfared, student held in Evin: Supreme Court upholds his death sentence

Branch 41 of the Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of Amirhasan Akbari Monfared, an accounting student who has been in detention since the winter of 2024-25. The Iran Human Rights Center said the sentence was communicated to him in Evin prison on Sunday, 11 October 2026, and that at the same time he was handed a pardon request form and a "letter of repentance".

With the sentence upheld by the Supreme Court, the danger that this prisoner will be executed soon has become serious. The Iran Human Rights Center stressed that, according to the information available, he had no part in the event to which his case is tied and knew nothing of it.

The case of Amirhasan Akbari Monfared

Amirhasan Akbari Monfared was arrested on 19 January 2025 at his father's home in Karaj, two days after Mohammad Moghiseh and Ali Razini, two well-known judges of the Islamic Republic's judiciary, were killed at the Supreme Court building in Tehran. Intelligence agents arrested his father, sister and brother at the same time; they were later released temporarily on bail, but Amirhasan remained in custody.

The human rights organization Hengaw had earlier reported that Branch 15 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, presided over by Abolqasem Salavati, a judge whose name appears in the cases of many political prisoners, sentenced him to death on the charge of "baghi (armed rebellion) through membership in the Mojahedin-e Khalq organization", and that the sentence was communicated to him in Evin prison on 21 July 2026. Human rights bodies say the proceedings in this case lacked the basic guarantees of a fair trial.

A wave of upheld death sentences

The confirmation of this sentence comes as reports say that Reza Zangeneh, a prisoner sentenced to death, has been moved to solitary confinement in Ghezel Hesar prison, a transfer that usually takes place before an execution is carried out. According to human rights bodies, the Islamic Republic has executed at least 2,003 people in the past year, the highest figure in a decade.

The charge of "baghi" and of membership in opposition groups has in recent years been one of the judiciary of the Islamic Republic's most frequently used tools for handing down death sentences to political prisoners; a charge that is often heard in Revolutionary Courts, behind closed doors and without the defendant's free access to a lawyer of their choice.

The Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of a student who, human rights bodies say, played no part in the event attributed to him.