By Kayhan Life Staff
Saleh Mohammadi, an 18-year-old wrestler who was arrested during the January protests in Iran, has been sentenced to public execution in Nabovvat Square in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran.
He has been convicted of premeditated murder of an officer serving in the special unit of the Police Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FARAJA).
Documents obtained by Kayhan Life do not establish that Mohammadi was at the scene when the killing occurred. Surveillance footage shows no trace of him during the hour of the murder, and the case file includes no evidence linking him to the officer’s death.
Furthermore, the young athlete was forced to deliver self-incriminating statements under coercion and duress.
According to the account presented in the case file, on the evening of Thursday, January 8, 2026, a group gathered in Nabovvat Square and threw Molotov cocktails at officers.
During the incident, Mohammad Qasemi Hamapour, an officer in FARAJA’s Special Units, was killed after falling from his motorcycle, allegedly as a result of blows inflicted with a knife and a sword.
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The file also asserts that, based on a report by the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization (ILMO), 29 injuries were documented on the victim’s body, with injury number seven identified as the fatal wound.
The court attributed this specific injury to what it described as “Saleh Mohammadi’s knife,” stating that its conclusion was based on confessions obtained during interrogation.
In court, Mohammadi denied the charge of murder and maintained that his confessions had been extracted under duress.
Closed-circuit television footage did not show his face at the scene.
He was denied the right to select his own legal counsel; nevertheless, his court-appointed attorney raised several substantive issues casting doubt on the murder conviction, including the absence of any video evidence placing him at the location at the relevant time.
Mohammadi and his relatives have also stated that, at the time of the killing, a member of the special unit had seen him at his uncle’s house and at the entrance to the alley leading to that residence.
Despite this evidence, the court declined to hear testimony from witnesses who could have corroborated his whereabouts.
In addition, Mohammadi’s coaches and teammates have emphasized that he never possessed or carried a knife.
The death sentence imposed in his case has reportedly relied on testimony from individuals whose identities remain undisclosed and whose credibility cannot be independently assessed.
The conviction and death sentence imposed on Mohammadi — reportedly facing imminent enforcement through an extrajudicial process — have been characterized as a stark example of alleged case fabrication by the security institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran targeting citizens who took part in nationwide protests.
Authorities have announced that Mohammadi has 20 days to appeal the verdict.
However, in a comparable case involving Majidreza Rahnavard, a resident of Mashhad — capital of the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi — who was sentenced to death during the 2022 protests, the Judiciary carried out his execution before the appellate court had issued its ruling.
Mohammadi will turn 19 on March 11. In 2024, he won a medal in international freestyle wrestling competitions held in Russia.
Human rights organizations have reported that during the December and January protests, more than 50,000 citizens were arrested in cities across the country. Amid allegations of case fabrication and scenario-building by the security institutions of the Islamic Republic, many detainees face the risk of receiving death sentences and having those sentences carried out.
