Two Iranian men, probably police officers, received death sentences for the suspicious killing of at least three political prisoners in a jail in southern Tehran, according to a judiciary statement released Wednesday, DPA reported.
An Iranian military court last December charged at least 12 unidentified men, including 11 police officers and one civilian, of killing three political prisoners in the Kahrizak jail.
The court at that time said that the three did not, as initially claimed by prison officials, die of meningitis but, as charged by the opposition, of severe beatings.
The same military court on Wednesday sentenced two of the charged persons to death and the remaining nine to jail terms and lashes, according to the statement carried by Fars news agency.
Following street demonstrations against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009, some 4,000 people including students, dissidents, journalists and even former reformist officials were arrested.
While most were detained in the Evin prison in northern Tehran, some 200 were reportedly brought to Kahrizak.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered in July the closure of the Kahrizak due to lack of sufficient hygienic and other necessary standards for preserving detainees' rights.
One of the opposition leaders, Medhi Karroubi, even accused Kahrizak prison officials of having raped several young male and female prisoners.
The charges by the moderate cleric were categorically denied by the government.
The death toll from the street protests against Ahmadinejad over alleged election fraud is still unclear.
According to the official toll, 30 demonstrators were killed, but opposition circles claim that at least 70 were killed, many of them in the Kahrizak prison.
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