ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – Yousef Kakehmami, an Iranian Kurd already serving a nine-year sentence in Oroumieh Central Prison, was sentenced to five more years for writing a letter to the United Nations (UN).
Kakehmami was denied a state-appointed lawyer although most prisoners receive one. Amnesty International (AI) reported on Tuesday that after two unfair trails in 2006 and 2008, the Kurdish prisoner received three and six-year sentences respectively.
“Yousef Kakehmami, 38, was taken to Branch Six of the Office of the Prosecutor in Oroumieh several times in 2015, and questioned, without a lawyer present,” AI wrote.
“He was told he had been charged with ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ and ‘communicating with foreign media and organizations,’ and questioned about a letter he had written in March 2015 to Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, detailing his recent transfer to a detention facility run by the Revolutionary Guards, where he said he had been tortured and otherwise ill-treated,” the AI statement added.
