Ali Mahin Torabi was 16 when he was arrested for alleged murder in Iran. Here is his account of his seven agonising years in jail before he managed to escape.
It was February 2003; I was aged 16, at school in the city of Karaj, in the western outskirts of Tehran, when one of my classmates, Milad, came into the class looking very upset. He said he'd had a quarrel with someone and wanted to sort things out during the break.
When the bell rang, I followed him outside so I could stop him fighting. He got physical with a student, Mazdak; I tried to separate them but then Mazdak thought I was taking Milad's side.
At the end of the day, Mazdak stopped me outside school. Milad had given me his folder, which had a knife in it, and I'd put the knife in my pocket. Then Milad and Mazdak got physical, I slapped Mazdak, and all the kids got into a fight.
A few of them, who also had knives, started to attack me and beat me. I took out the knife to scare them, but there was a huge crowd and so many people were fighting ... and then I saw Mazdak with blood on his shirt.
As soon as people saw the blood, everyone ran away, even our friends. I stopped a car and begged the driver to take Mazdak to hospital, but he refused to help. Mazdak was bleeding for 20 minutes before he was taken to hospital – he had lost too much blood and died. I was taken to our headmaster's office; they called the police, who arrested me. But the knife in my hand had no blood.
At the police station, I told them everything that had happened. The police asked my father to give them a bribe to get the case dismissed, but he refused. I was in custody for 28 days and during that time, I endured all kinds of torture and beatings. They beat me so hard that finally I confessed to something I had not done. I was handcuffed and shackled all the time, the only detainee at my age to be in foot shackles. I suffered a lot, and told them I would confess to anything.
After my own forced confession, I was sent to the juvenile detention and correctional centre in Tehran, and kept there in solitary for one month. Then I was sent to the general ward for 2½ years.
Finally, my sentence was handed down. I was given a sentence of 10 years in jail and punished by qisas, equal retaliation, which required me to be put to death. Everyone told me the sentence was unprecedented. Even grown-ups don't get 10 years with a death sentence.
I was transferred to Karaj's Rajaee-Shahr prison and my case was sent to the supreme court, which upheld the death sentence but overturned the 10-year imprisonment. It was horrible, I couldn't believe it. They execute on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, I was thinking it would be my last. In Rajaee-Shahr, I was tortured again. I was kept in a small cell, about 5x5 metres, with two other inmates. I was 18 years old when I was transferred there, and was kept on a juvenile ward for a while. Many were on death row.
Source: The Guardian, March 28, 2012