Kurdish political prisoner Hatem Ozdemir, who was transferred on 23 June from Orumiyeh Central Prison to the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Khoy, West Azerbaijan province, was returned to prison on 29 June.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that security interrogators from the Ministry of Intelligence threatened Ozdemir, who has Turkish citizenship, that if he did not cooperate they would extradite him to Turkey.
On 2 July 2019, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces from the Hamzeh Seyyed al-Shohada base in Orumiyeh ambushed a group of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members, including Ozdemir, in the border areas of Chaldoran, West Azerbaijan province, northwest Iran.
Ozdemir was knocked unconscious by a mortar shell during the shooting and shelling. He was arrested and taken to the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC detention centre in Orumiyeh.
After initial interrogations, the prisoner was transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison on 19 August 2019.
In March 2022, Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Khoy sentenced Ozdemir to death and five years imprisonment after he had been detained for 33 months.
He was tried without the right to a lawyer and charged with “armed insurrection” and “membership of a terrorist group”.
The case was referred to the Supreme Court following his appeal against the sentence.
In March 2023, Branch Nine of the Supreme Court overturned Ozdemir’s death sentence and referred the case to the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, for retrial.
Ozdemir has been suffering from kidney stones since his arrest, but the authorities at Orumiyeh Central Prison have denied him medical care, despite doctors and ultrasound results suggesting that he needs surgery.
Source » kurdistanhumanrights