Ali Motahari, an Iranian conservative MP, has called on the Interior Minister and the head of the security forces to “apologize to the family of Sattar Beheshti, the people and the leader of Iran” for the blogger who died in custody a few days after his arrest by cuber police.
Motahari told the Khaneh Mellat News Agency: “It is impossible that Beheshti might have died of natural causes, especially since he was a very healthy young man.”
Sattar Beheshti ran a blog where he criticized government instances of human rights violations. He was arrested in October and pronounced dead about a week after his arrest.
Motahari said: “Our minimum demand is the unbiased prosecution of the perpetrators of this incident and implementation of the appropriate judicial provisions for such cases, such as the payment of blood money.”
He added that “the removal of the Tehran Cyber Police chief by the head of the security forces is commendable, but it is not enough and more needs to be done.”
The head of cyber police in Tehran was removed in November for “failure to provide appropriate supervision over staff actions and the processing of Sattar Beheshti’s case.”
Motahari has said that he will put his questions about Beheshti’s case to Parliament in the coming week.
The Beheshti family lawyer has expressed concern that the officials charged in his death might not be taken to court because a consent was taken from Beheshti’s mother before the dimensions of the case were revealed.
The Prosecutor General, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, has been quoted as saying that 11 people have been interrogated in connection with this case and three have been charged so far.
