Habibollah Latifi

Who is Habibollah Latifi?

Habibollah Latifi is a Kurdish Iranian law student at Azad University and a Kurdish activist who has been charged with Moharebeh and sentenced to death by an Islamic Revolutionary Court in Iran. He is charged with committing acts of violence in cooperation with the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan in 2007.

Latifi has been described as "a straight A student and an athlete who loves nature and his country's mountains." He was arrested in October 2007 and sentenced to death in 2008 in a court session that lasted a few minutes and that followed four months of interrogation and torture. His sentence was upheld by an appeals court in 2009. His lawyer was informed on Thursday, December 22, 2010 that Latifi was scheduled to be executed on Sunday, December 26, 2010 in Sanandaj prison in Kurdistan Province, Iran. His execution was halted after his lawyer requested further investigation into his case in a letter to judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani. Latifi met with his family on Sunday morning.

Amnesty International has asked Iran to commute Latifi's sentence. They note that he had no legal representation at his trial, which was held behind closed doors. "It is clear that Habibollah Latifi did not receive a fair trial by international standards, which makes the news of his impending execution all the more abhorrent," Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director, said .