Abdolreza Soudbakhsh, a physician and professor at the University of Tehran, was shot dead by men on a motorcycle as he left his office last September. At the time of his assassination, Iranian officials denied his murder had anything to do with the cases of alleged rape in Kahrizak, a notorious detention center used to hold many of those arrested in the post-election protests.
The doctor was planning to leave Iran on the night of his assassination, which his son said suggested he was killed to prevent him from revealing more information. Soudbakhsh Sr. had given an interview to the Persian outlet of Deutsche Welle, Germany’s state broadcaster, a few weeks before his death, in which he had mentioned rape inside the prison.
“They were thinking that my father was going to the US to reveal his information in detail in an open society. My father was one of the few experts in Iran who had precise information [on the issue],” Soudbakhsh Jr. said. “They killed my father because he didn’t want to lie and he didn’t lie.”
Four protesters are believed to have been tortured to death in Kahrizak and several have claimed they were raped. But the doctor’s son, Behrang Soud-bakhsh, said in an interview with Roozonline, an opposition website, that his father had indeed examined the rape victims of Kahrizak and was under pressure to remain silent about those who died under torture.
Kahrizak became a scandal for the regime when Mohsen Rouh-ol-amini, the son of an active figure in the conservative movement and an adviser to conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, died in Kahrizak. The father was told the son died of meningitis. But when the father picked up the body, he found his son’s face smashed in and many teeth missing. He then went public and caused a furor, not just among reformists, but also among conservatives as well.
Behrang Soudbakhsh said, “[My father] was told to say that the victims of Kahrizak had meningitis. He asked to see the dead bodies and, when he examined them, he concluded they had died from torture and not meningitis.
Once he asked how they could rape an 18-year-old kid so severely that he died after that? How could they rape the children.”
According to the doctor’s son, Soudbakhsh was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time of his assassination. He was shot where the vest did not protect his body by a gun with a silencer. His son said this showed the killers were aware he was wearing the vest.
Soudbakhsh Jr. said the police refused to investigate his father’s death. According to witnesses who spoke to the son, the killers appeared so unworried about being caught that they did not cover their faces. The dead man’s family has been unable to view surveillance video of the shooting.