Following the remarks by Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei on Abdollah Momeni’s revelations of torture while he was in prison, political prisoner Momeni issued an open public letter in which he rejects the assertions of Iran’s public prosecutor. Rooz spoke with Momeni’s wife Fatemeh Adinevand in which she says, among other comments that, “Nothing is left of Abdollah.”

Political prisoner Abdollah Momeni is a senior member and spokesperson for the Advar Tahkim Vahdat student alumni group, Iran's largest reformist student organization which works to advance and enforce democratic principles and human rights. He has received a number of international awards for his dedication to protect human rights, including the prestigious Czech Homo Homini award. He was arrested soon after the June 2009 presidential elections that sparked nationwide protests in Iran.

In a news conference last week, Iran’s public prosecutor and former minister of intelligence Mohseni Ejei had said, “The assertion that a judge can be lenient if Momeni’s interrogators express their satisfaction with him, is true.”He further said, “Regarding the claims attributed to the interrogators of this person [i.e., Momeni], it should be noted that we have instructed interrogators that their bluffs must be such that the suspect understands them to be bluffs, and it is not possible for an interrogator to tell a suspect that his judge is a nobody and that he, the interrogator, has absolute authority over him. Even if an interrogator makes such a claim, is it believable?.”

In his response to Ejei, Momeni reminds the prosecutor that his original letter was addressed to the leader of the Islamic republic and not him, and adds, “Soon after the publication of my letter, while on repeated occasions I had described its contents to a number of judiciary officials, on September 30, 2010 in a meeting with Tehran’s prosecutor Mr. Jaafari Dolatabadi I again reiterated and reviewed the acts of torture and illegal behavior during my temporary detention perpetrated by ministry of intelligence interrogators, and filed a legal suit against all of those individuals responsible for the illegal acts, and launched my complaint addressed to the highest civil and revolutionary courts of Tehran.” Mohseni continues that since all of those officials affiliated to the judiciary hierarchy are responsible for the illegal acts committed by the interrogators, as may be Ejei, the latter should have communicated his position to the investigative judge and not engage in media interviews to describe “the dark aspects of the intelligence and security gangs who intervened in the elections and the subsequent events.”

In his letter to prosecutor Ejei, Momeni again categorically reiterated that everything he has written and said about the physical and psychological torture committed on him were absolutely factual and true.

In this regard, Momeni’s wife Fatemeh Adinevand tells Rooz that, “Momeni’s latest letter is in line with his previous letters. In his preceding letter he talks about the events during his interrogation. That letter was addressed to the leader, which brought forth varying responses. I too have tried to submit his letters to state authorities, which included ayatollah Hashemi [Rafsanjani] during a meeting that he had with families of political prisoners.”

Ms. Adinevand described how her husband’s open letters had brought about reprisals from his captives. “His interrogators told him that he should forget about being given any leave till the end of his sentence. The prosecutor’s office too has said that leave is not within their prerogative and that it is the security agencies that must approve such requests, the possibility of which looks bleak now. They had earlier said that Momeni’s letters had disgraced the regime. We had made many requests for medical leave for Momeni, but all had been denied,” she told Rooz.

Adinevand also told Rooz that what her husband had written in his letters about the tortures during his interrogations was not the whole truth and not everything that he had experienced. “The last time saw Momeni prior to his ‘trial’ he appeared to have lost 20 kilos [44 pounds). What I saw was not Momeni at all: he was only skin and bones who did not have the psychological and spiritual power to speak, stand or walk on his own. Nothing is left of Abdollah. He has not written everything in his letters, and in fact has not even told me everything. I have heard other acts and events from his friends,” she communicated.

She explained that Momeni had submitted his complaints directly and in person to Jaafari Dolatabadi, Tehran’s prosecutor when the latter had personally visited the prisoner. “Nothing has been done since Abdollah’s complaint, except Mr. Ejei’s media conference, to which Abdollah has responded,” Adinevand said. She expressed her hope that her husband’s complaint and depiction of the brutality that goes on behind prison bars in Iran is investigated and corrected. She concluded her interview by reiterating that her husband and his friends had nothing but the desire for the goodness of the country. “I do not understand how they can claim that he is against the state when his brother is a war martyr. If he is against the sate then what about those who commit acts of torture and beat up prisoners? Torture is that act that is against national security and not what Abdollah and his friends have done,” she said.

Momeni was given a leave after his trial but then subsequently and unexpectedly recalled back to prison, which is when he wrote and published his expose letters related to events during his interrogation period. Pushing his head into a toilet bowl, curses that included disrespect to his family, pressing his throat till he chocked, and beatings with broom-sticks, among others are the acts that Momeni was subjected to during his interrogation that he has described in his letters.

Momeni’s letter to the leader of the Islamic state has not brought forth a response from him, but other political prisoners such as Mostafa Tajzadeh and Mohammad Nourizadeh have stood up to support what Momeni has written, and Nourizadeh has himself too written on what he was subjected to during his interrogation period.

In his official complaint, Momeni names judiciary officials by name which includes former Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortezavi, revolutionary court interrogator Heydarifar, who is also the principal suspect in the criminal events at Kahrizak prison, chief judge of branch 15 of the revolutionary court judge Salavati, and ministry of intelligence interrogators such as seyed Ali Salehi ( commonly known as “seyed”), among others. He calls them the “key torturers” during his stay at the notorious ward 209 of Evin prison.

After the publication of Momeni’s expose, the spokesperson for Iran's judiciary Ejei characterized Momeni’s details as “unbelievable.”