Iran wrestler defects to avoid death penalty for supporting revolt

Mohammad Namjoo-Motlagh: 'I will remain their voice until Iran is freed from oppression'

A decorated Iranian wrestler fled to Germany to avoid a possible death sentence or being blinded by the authorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran for his social media posts in support of the revolt against the Iranian theocratic state.

The star wrestler Mohammad Namjoo-Motlagh told the US government news outlet RFE/RL's Radio Farda in late January that "It was clear where this was going" and "I would either lose my life or they would blind me, or in the best-case scenario, I would be sent to prison."

Namjoo-Motlagh added he faced "constant threats and psychological pressure" from the Iran Wrestling Federation and other state entities.

The Iranian-American expert on the Islamic Republic, Alireza Nader, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that "The wrestler’s defection is yet another example of how the Islamic Republic has driven out millions of smart, talented, and ambitious Iranians from their country. Iran will face ultimate ruin unless the Islamic Republic is overthrown and Iran is able to use its vast natural and human resources to achieve its full potential as a nation."

According to Radio Farda, the 26-year-old Namjoo-Motlagh did not disclose how he escaped from Iran and arrived in Europe.

Namjoo-Motlagh told Radio Farda that although some Iranian athletes protested against the regime's repression, adding that many athletes went silent because of threats to their existence.

"It was extremely sad to see that members of the national wrestling team, soccer team, and others were condemned to silence for fear for their lives and the lives of their families," said Namjoo-Motlagh, who is a lightweight wrestler. Iranian wrestlers are some of the best in the world and Iran frequently wins medals in Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling in the Olympics and international competitions. Wrestling is a national pastime sport in Iran.

Will Iran's Mohammad Namjoo-Motlagh suffer the same fate as Navid Afkari?

Namjoo-Motlagh told the outlet that Iranian athletes who "stand on the side of the truth" will suffer the same fate as the 27-year-old wrestler Navid Afkari, who was m hanged in 2020 by Iran's regime for his peaceful protest in 2018 against the Islamic Republic's political and economic corruption.

The clerical regime framed Afkari, claiming he killed an Iranian government employee assigned to spy on protestors, according to human rights groups. The US government slapped sanctions in 2020 on the Iranian Judge Seyyed Mahmoud Sadati who sentenced Afkari to death. Iranian officials tortured Afkari to make a false confession, according to Afkari and eyewitnesses.

Iran's regime arrested Afkari's brothers Habib and Vahid in 2018 for also protesting against worsening economic conditions and political corruption. They have suffered inhumane conditions during their incarceration, according to independent Iranian media reports.

In November, Iran's regime arrested Navid's sister, Elham Afkari, claiming she was an “Iran International agent." The clerical regime has been in a state of panic over the Afkari family due to the international campaign to secure the freedom of the Afkari brothers and remember Navid's efforts to root out the repression of women in Iran and the widespread corruption within the clerical state.

Source: jpost.com, Benjamin Weinthal, February 6, 2023

_____________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW US ON:

TELEGRAM

TWITTER

CONTACT: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

California | Becerra vows to extend moratorium despite past support for capital punishment

SACRAMENTO—Democrat Xavier Becerra defended the death penalty while serving as California’s attorney general, a punishment his office actively sought in the case of a gunman convicted of an Orange County mass shooting, but as the front-running candidate for governor, he has vowed to block executions if elected in November. Becerra said he will extend the blanket reprieve for all death row inmates that Gov. Gavin Newsom enacted by executive order in 2019, saying he supported “moving our state away from a costly, flawed system that disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities and too often gets it wrong.”

Iran | Afghan Citizen Executed in Wheelchair Due to Severe Mobility Disability

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Iranian authorities have reportedly executed an Afghan citizen, identified as Valijan Nourzay, at the central prison in Rafsanjan, according to the human rights organization Hengaw. Hengaw said in a statement on Sunday, September 6, that Nourzay was executed early Wednesday last week at Rafsanjan Central Prison. According to the organization, Nourzay had a severe mobility disability and was executed while in a wheelchair. Hengaw, citing informed sources, reported that Nourzay had been pursued by Iranian authorities three years ago over an alleged murder. He was reportedly seriously wounded after Iranian security forces opened fire on him in Rafsanjan before being arrested and later sentenced to death.

Egypt TV presenter and 11 others sentenced to death in major drugs case

Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa and 11 others have been sentenced to death by hanging after being convicted of drug trafficking and rape, while nine defendants received life sentences and seven were acquitted. Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa, 39, has been sentenced to death by hanging along with 11 other defendants after being found guilty in a drugs case involving a criminal gang accused of importing ingredients used to manufacture narcotics for sale.

He Spent 27 Years on Death Row as a Wrongfully Convicted Man. What Comes Next?

23-hour solitary confinement. 115-degree heat. Jimmie Duncan is haunted by the decades he spent in Louisiana’s Angola Prison—and how, even after being released, he still isn’t truly free. Jimmie “Chris” Duncan wiped the sweat off his forehead as he assessed his temporary home from the parking lot of a rundown motel in central Louisiana. Sure, there’s drug dealing and prostitution, he said on a recent summer afternoon. And he suspected his neighbors were cooking meth on a floor below the room he paid $350 a week to rent.

California | He spent 19 years on death row. His conversion to Judaism helped him endure

Johnny Morales struggled to find sleep. He dozed off for a few moments, but officers came to his death row cell and woke him a little after midnight. They needed to inventory and box up his belongings. He was leaving San Quentin. Hands cuffed behind his back, he walked across the empty upper yard in the dim gray hours before daylight. An officer walked alongside him step for step, black latex-gloved fingers holding onto Morales’s arm. For almost 20 years, Morales could only experience the world outside his 4-by-11 foot cell in the condemned housing unit like this—chained and escorted by officers. Security protocols required all death row residents be handcuffed or shackled any time they were out in open space with staff.

Ex-corrections officials urge governor to commute Kansas death sentences

Former Kansas corrections officials are urging Governor Laura Kelly to grant clemency to the state's death row inmates. Former Kansas Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz has several reasons why he thinks the state should abolish the death penalty. Werholtz, who served as secretary from 2002 to 2010 and returned on an interim basis in 2019, uses his discussions with peers and family members of victims as well as experiences of seeing wrongly convicted people getting exonerated as his guiding points.

Florida executes Harold Gene Lucas

Florida state officials executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday evening, concluding a 50-year legal saga stemming from the 1976 murder of a 16-year-old girl in Bonita Springs. STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was sentenced to death for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.

Florida executes Daniel Owen Conahan Jr.

In Florida’s 15th execution this year, man put to death for killing linked to ‘Hog Trail Murders’ A Florida man convicted in one of a series of suspected killings that became known as the “Hog Trail Murders” in the 1990s was put to death Thursday, becoming the state’s 15th person executed this year. Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a 3-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where authorities found the remains of at least 6 people over a 3-year span.

Arizona AG seeks execution date for man convicted in 1995 trooper killing

Trooper Bob Martin was killed during a traffic stop on the Beeline highway; execution for his killer could be as soon as January PHOENIX (AZFamily)—The Arizona Attorney General is asking for an execution date to be set for a man convicted in the killing of an Arizona State Trooper over 30 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1995, Trooper Bob Martin was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop along the Beeline Highway.

Florida set to carry out 14th execution this year in the nation's busiest death chamber

MIAMI (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends is set to be executed Tuesday in the first of three lethal injections scheduled this month in the state. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is set to receive a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6 p.m. He would be the 14th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed death warrants for two more executions set for later this September.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog