TEHRAN -- A video of the judicial trial of three men involved in the brutal killing of a young Iranian Basiji has been circulating on social media, with confessions from the accused on how they murdered Seyed Ruhollah Ajamian.
They told the judges hearing the case that the violence perpetrated by them and others across the country was due to “incitement from foreign media”.
Ajamian was stabbed to death by a group of rioters armed with cold weapons in early November in Karaj city, the capital of central Alborz province.
Soon after, viral photos and videos of the gory incident showed the young man lying on a street with a blood-stained body and his Basiji uniform torn off, sending shockwaves across the country.
A 23-second video showed one of the rioters ruthlessly dragging him even as others hit him with hard objects and kicked him with their boots.
During the trial, Muhammad Mahdi Karami, one of the accused, said they were “deceived” (by foreign media propaganda) and aggressively overactive.”
In the video, describing how he and his accomplices martyred Ajamian, he told the judge: “I heard someone say there is a Basiji man out there. I turned around and saw he had fallen to the ground and three people were surrounding him and beating him.”
The young man tried to run away, Karami said, going on to explain in detail how the group of rioters snatched the life out of him.
“Everyone was hitting him with stones, knives, even bare hands. I can say there were at least 30 to 40 people hitting and stabbing him. I saw knives of different sizes and shapes. Some had brass knuckles (fist-load weapons). Some had stones in their hands and others had nothing. Their attitudes were weird,” he said.
“I hit him with a stone on his head, and then punched his head three times. He fell to the ground. As soon as he fell to the ground, a guy was kicking him violently on his side and trunk,” Karami added, giving vivid details of the incident.
“I also kicked him on his leg and two times on his knee. Then I saw someone approach and stab him three to four times in his stomach, I cannot recall precisely how many times.”
Karami also confessed that he dragged Ajamian on the asphalt, saying he did not know whether he was still alive or had died at that point. Medical reports confirmed that he was alive at the time when he was still being attacked and dragged and eventually succumbed on his way to the hospital.
Muhammad Husseini, who Karami and others identified as the one who “stabbed Ajamian two or three times”, told the judge about his attack on the victim.
“At first, I grabbed a few stones and shoved them at the young man, unintentionally, but fortunately I missed him,” he said.
He said he then took out a knife which he usually uses to plant flowers at the graves of his mother and father.
“I took the knife and pushed it downwards on his stomach and it penetrated it the size of a thumb, but I did not stab him!”
A third defendant, Farzam Nia also confessed to stabbing Ajamian in the right shoulder and then running away.
The video of the trial in the Persian language showed at least a dozen young men present in the courtroom, who confessed to their role in the slaying, with some asking for forgiveness, saying they were “carried away” due to foreign media incitement.
Western and Saudi-backed media outlets have been leading a hybrid war against young Iranians in order to provoke them and the government and young Basijis, who are in fact mobilization popular forces that help preserve stability and security in the country.
As Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei explained in his most recent speech, “being a member of the Basij means accepting that you will be oppressed in order to save the oppressed.”
In Ayatollah Khamenei’s words, the Basij culture is a culture of self-effacing, hardworking volunteers. It is a culture of humble, undaunted fighters, a sense of braveness, a sense of serving mankind, and a sense of serving the country. It means making sacrifices for others.
Today, the Basij count has grown to over 20 million members, who shoulder a range of responsibilities that transcend the military circle and include scientific, social, and medical services.
On November 5, the comrades and colleagues of Arman Alaverdi, a 21-year-old Iranian Basiji youth who was severely beaten by armed rioters in Tehran and later died at a hospital, said the Daesh-like thugs who martyred the young man were trained by foreign countries.
One of Aliverdi’s friends said whenever the thugs would see a young man belonging to the Basij, they would surround and assault him.
The misinformation campaign against Iran has not stopped since the beginning of the riots in September. Riots broke out on September 16 after a young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died.
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