Dubai: Iranian state prosecutors are being held accountable for allegedly covering up two rapes committed by IRG members.
The IRGC members are accused of sexually assaulting two women, ages 18 and 23, in a van in Tehran last September, according to an internal judicial document, The Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
They had been held during the protests that started that month after Mahsa Amini passed away after being detained by Iran's "morality police." The phones of the women were checked for any indication that they had participated in the protests because they were accused of acting suspiciously.
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According to reports, the hacktivist collective Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) first leaked the legal document to the news outlet Iran International. Despite the fact that activists have long held the suspicion that some female detainees were sexually assaulted by security personnel during the protests, this is the first internal document to surface and reveal a specific case of this kind.
The letter was addressed to Ali Salehi, the general and revolution prosecutor, and was dated October 13, 2022. Mohammad Shahriari, the deputy prosecutor and head of the prosecutor's office in Tehran, wrote it. According to a report based on a number of witness accounts, two named women were allegedly assaulted by two named male security personnel.
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Prosecutors learned about the case after one of the IRGC officers called one of the assault victims. She made a recording of the conversation and complained. The policeman at first denied the allegations but later changed his story to say that the women had given their consent to sex. According to reports, he and his father were both arrested at their Tehran home. Separate arrests were made of the other accused officer, who was then taken to a jail run by a police intelligence unit.
The report describes how the two men eventually confessed to having had rape-like behaviour with the women. The two women were detained by the officers while they were stationed on Sattarkhan Street in western Tehran, according to the first officer. When they were informed that the accused women could not be processed there, the officers who had initially taken them to the Revolutionary Guard's headquarters turned around and left.
It is advised that the necessary order (is) issued for it to be filed top secret, the document continues, "considering the problematic nature of the case, the possibility of this information being leaked into social media, and its misrepresentation by enemy groups.
"The accused should be dismissed without mentioning their names since no complaint has been filed and the defendants have been discharged."
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The case should be concluded without making any mention of the relevant military institution, it was added.