Iran police chief claims detainee mistreatment exaggerated

Commander Ahmadi Moghaddam

Police Commander Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam denied the reports regarding Karhrizak claiming they have been “mostly exaggerated.” He told reporters today that the police force does not confirm any of the reports concerning Kahrizak detention centre because they have been exaggerated.

Kahrizak, a detention centre located in the south of Tehran, was run under the supervision of the police department, and in the post-election protests, many of the detainees were kept at this location.

The detention centre is connected with reports of rape and torture as well as death of four people in custody. The police deny all these reports.

While the police department has confirmed the occurrence of certain violations in Kahrizak, the details of these cases have not been announced.

ILNA reports that Mr. Ahmadi Moghaddam announced that 10 police officers directly responsible for the running of the centre have been arrested and remanded to the judiciary.

A reporter’s inquiry about the rank of the arrested officials drew a harsh reaction from Mr. Ahmadi Moghaddam as he said: “What do you mean by high or low rank? If you want to make a political confrontation and say that one of NAJA’s commanders have been arrested is inappropriate!”

NAJA is the disciplinary force of the Islamic Republic.

He added that Kahrizak’s file should gear toward “discovering the truth.” To this end he claimed the police department has not interfered with this investigation and cooperated well with the National Security Council. According to Mr. Ahmadi Moghaddam, the file has not been hindered by the police department and the actions of a few officers should not be connected with all of the security forces.

A special committee has been charged with looking into the Kahrizak violations. According to Parviz Sorouri, the head of the committee, 104 lawsuits have been filed in connections with this centre. He has also said that the large volume of the lawsuits means that it will take at least a year to process them.