Source: En Vero English
Author: S. A. Aram
Sept. 15, 2018
Reviewed by: Jorge B
Mohammad Ali Taheri responds to his former lawyer’s statement
Mohammad Ali Taheri, Iranian scholar and spiritual teacher, has responded to his former lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh, who recently published a statement concerning his case.
In his statement Mr. Alizadeh claims that he met Mr. Taheri before accepting his case and told him,
“Since you don’t have any academic and Islamic education, and your scientific and spiritual claims are not experi-mental, the judiciary will not allow people, like you, with this kind of claims to become a hero. But if you want to get through this situation, I can help you. I also told him that continuing his spiritual activities could be considered as spreading corruption on Earth based on Article 286 of the new Islamic Penal Code. I strongly warned him again regarding this matter and asked him not to be fooled by human rights organizations.”
On September 1, 2018, Mr. Taheri wrote five pages in answer to Mr. Alizadeh’s statement to clarify the situation:
“After reading Mr. Alizadeh’s statement and understanding the current disaster, I find it necessary to respond to it to clarify matters and prevent further conspiracy.”He continues: “My death sentence was the result of illegal procedures, physical terror and character assassination by authorities and security prosecutors of the Sarallah section of the IRGC. Consequently, the Supreme Court rejected the sentence because it was illegal. The duty of a respon-sible lawyer is to not allow illegal acts and the violation of the rights of the defendant. We expected the same from Mr. Alizadeh as a lawyer. However, during his entire time as my lawyer, he tried to force me to write a letter of repentance for a crime I had not committed. In addition, before I appointed him as my lawyer, I had never met Mr. Alizadeh, we never had any discussion, nor were there any terms and conditions agreed to by either one of us.”
Concerning Mr. Alizadeh’s statement that “the judiciary doesn’t allow people like you to become a hero,” Mr. Taheri says: “The authorities and the judiciary don’t allow anyone under any circumstance to become a hero, regardless of their teachings and claims. I didn’t want to become a hero at all. I only published some books and started a spiritual school legally with approval of the authorities. It was only due to the public interest in my teachings and an increase in the number of followers that the security prosecutors of Sarallah decided to intervene. If my research work on complementary medicine is considered a claim and non-experimental, then why, after my arrest and that of many of my students, after all the murders, and after the charges against me and my school, are there still thousands of followers all around the world?” he says.
With respect to the reasons for the Supreme Court’s rejection of his death sentence, he mentions: “The Supreme Court quashed my death sentence and the charge of spreading corruption on Earth for four reasons:
(1) The acts were not in accordance with the old laws of the Islamic Penal Code about spreading corruption on Earth. (2) The acts were in accordance with Article 286 of the new laws. (3) There is no legal standing for referring to the Fatwa of Islamic Mullahs. (4) The acts were not in accordance with verses in the Quran about spreading corruption on Earth. He continues: “There is no mention about my teachings in any of the Supreme Court’s decisions which are based on my acts, not my teachings. Therefore, I can stop my acts by not longer teaching my courses, but I can’t have my teachings stopped or destroyed.”
In closing he says: “A lawyer should not comment on matters involving his client. In addition, Mr. Alizadeh should have defen-ded me based only on the evidence and the above-mentioned reasons. According to the Supreme Court decision, I did not commit the crime of spreading corruption on Earth. Thus, my detention and confinement are illegal, and I should be released immediately.
For the above reasons, I have discharged Mr. Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei from my case as of August 27, 2018, and therefore, he no longer represents me.”
