The trial of Hamid Nouri, one of the suspects in Iran’s mass executions of 1988 has begun in Sweden.

Legal expert Kaveh Mousavi told Iran International that the first trial session of Nouri was held on Wednesday in Sweden.

As the judge of Gohardasht prison in 1988, Nouri has been charged with “war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, and participating in the continued crime of refusing to return the bodies of executed prisoners to their families.”

The mass executions of 1988 started with the order of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Republic at the time.

After his order, a committee was sent by Khomeini to prisons to decide the fate of the political prisoners. The committee was referred to as the “death committee” among the prisoners and their families.

The death committee consisted of several intelligence and judicial authorities, the most famous among them were Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, Ebrahim Raisi (current chief of the judiciary) Nayeri, and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, and many prison judges and wardens across the country.

According to the testimonies of former political prisoners, those executed were serving their prison sentences or had already served their sentence but had refused to sign the “letter of condemnation,” condemning their political groups, mainly the MEK. Some of those prisoners executed were in prison for crimes such as handing out political fliers.

According to unofficial reports, almost 5000 prisoners were executed in prisons.

Many of the victims were buried in mass graves in different cities such as Tehran, Ahvaz, and Rasht. After three decades, the families of the victims are still unaware of their burial sites.

According to Human Rights activists, the regime in Iran has tried to destroy these mass-grave sites and in some cities, it has constructed buildings on them.

Human Rights activist Iraj Mesdaghi told Iran International that Hamid Nouri has close ties to Ebrahim Raisi, the current chief of Iran’s judiciary and one of the members of the death committee.