Draft:Murder of Mitra Ostad

The murder of Mitra Ostad (1983 – 28 May 2014) refers to the incident in which she was killed by her husband, Mohammad-Ali Najafi, a politician and former mayor of Tehran, who was shot with a firearm. She was shot dead in her home on May 28 2014. Her body was found in the bathroom of her home on the seventh floor of the Armita Tower in the Saadat Abad district of Tehran. Minutes after the news of Mitra Ostad's murder was announced, some people identified her husband as the main suspect, which was rejected by the judicial authorities. However, Mohammad-Ali Najafi, hours later, went to the police station on Vahdat-e-Islami Street in Tehran and confessed to killing his second wife with a gun and was arrested. He stated that the main motive for committing the murder was psychological pressure and family problems. Najafi was sentenced to self-retribution in the lower court and, after obtaining the consent of the victim's family, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. He was released in late 2022. He has been pardoned and released from prison after serving nearly four years in prison.

Early life

Born in 1983 in Eslamabad-e Gharb, Ostad, the daughter of Kakabarar, also known as Mitra Najafi, was the second wife of politician and former mayor of Tehran, Mohammad-Ali Najafi. In April 2017, she registered as an independent candidate for the fifth round of the city council elections, but it is said that she had the tacit support of Mohammad Norouzi, the Friday prayer imam of Eslamshahr. Before running for the Eslamshahr city council elections, she had also acted as an actress in television series.

Acquaintance and relationship

According to Hamidreza Goodarzi, a lawyer at a court, in an interview with the Etemad Newspaper, Mitra Ostad entered Najafi's life and initiated this relationship.

Marriage

The marriage of Mohammad-Ali Najafi and Mitra Ostad made headlines in 2018 and caused a lot of controversy. Many considered this marriage to be the reason for Najafi's resignation from the Tehran mayorship.

Marginal

Contact with intelligence agencies

In the first days after the murder, Mohammad-Ali Najafi claimed that his second wife had contacts with security agencies. Earlier, this suspicion had been raised by some people regarding Najafi's resignation and the publication of private photos of him with his second wife. Some reformist figures, including Javad Imam, have stated that Mitra Ostad "had contacts" with the IRGC's intelligence agency and that his approach to Najafi was "targeted". Najafi claimed in the prosecution that his conversations were being wiretapped and made available to his second wife. He said in this regard: "I myself heard the conversations that they had sent to him on WhatsApp... I did not want to follow up on this issue myself because they were sending messages from a number that is not known where it came from?"

Najafi's daughter claimed that her father's second wife "had contacts with certain agencies and through that she contacted my father He had taken control and was pressuring him." However, Mohammad-Ali Najafi emphasized that he was not naming an institution and that it could be "someone in an institution that they were connected to."

The Ministry of Intelligence responded officially and denied any connection to Mitra Ostad. The IRGC Intelligence Organization did not respond to this accusation.

Mohsin Armin, a political figure, addressed the Mitra Ostad murder incident in a note in the very first days and, without mentioning the word "Swallow," pointed out the existence of a managed project in Najafi's life, writing:

"As someone who has spent a lifetime in politics, I must shamefully say that the political arena in our country is extremely dirty and stinky. I do not know whether Mitra Ostad entered Najafi's life based on the plan of the security brothers or not. But I have no doubt that at least since he entered his life, he has been managed as a project so that he can be used at the right time."

Conversion of Religion

Mitra Ostad was the son of Kakabrar Ostad, a tanbur master, and was born into a family of followers of the Yarsanism. Yarsan is said to be a non-Muslim religious minority whose followers mostly live in Kurdish areas. However, according to Mohammad-Ali Najafi in court, Mitra Ostad converted to Islam after meeting a diplomat and became a Shia Islam. This issue was very influential in the investigation of his murder case, and among the rumors and speculations raised were that Mitra Ostad was a bloodthirsty because of his belief in the Yarsan religion and that he had approached Seyyed Nasreddin Heydari Goran, a leader of the Yarsan community, to gain the consent of the master's family and not to retaliate, which was denied by his son.

The official Iranian media reported the murder of Mitra Ostad on Tuesday afternoon, June 27, 2019. Initial investigations showed that the murder took place on the seventh floor of a tower on Khordin Boulevard in the Saadat-Abad district of Tehran. The victim's body was discovered in a bathtub, having been shot to death. Hours after the incident, Najafi went to the Tehran Intelligence Police and confessed to killing his wife.

After committing the murder, Najafi had gone to Qom. Some people said that the reason for his trip to Qom was to meet with religious authorities, but this was denied by the police and the accused. Najafi said that he had gone to visit his father and grandfather's graves and intended to commit suicide, but then changed his mind and decided to come forward. He confirmed to the Tehran Prosecutor's Office that he had previously attempted suicide unsuccessfully at the Laleh Hotel in Tehran due to disagreements with his second wife.

According to the Mehr News Agency, "family disputes" were the reason for the murder. The Iran newspaper quoted Mitra Ostad's 13-year-old son as saying that Najafi beat his mother and had a violent temper. Najafi told the prosecutor's office that there had been a physical altercation between the two sides and that Mitra Ostad had also stabbed him several times.

Issuance of Indictment

On May 28, the Tehran Prosecutor's Office announced that it had issued an indictment in Najafi's case and sent it to the court. According to Ali Qasi Mehr, in view of the completion of the investigations into.

• The intentional murder of Mitra Ostad
• Carrying and keeping an unauthorized weapon
• Causing intentional bodily harm resulting in injury (non-fatal) and the request of the victim's parents for retribution against Najafi, the case was sent to the criminal court with an indictment.

Case Review Process

The Mohammad-Ali Najafi court held three sessions, the last of which was on June 3, the Judiciary Spokesperson announced that Mohammad-Ali Najafi had been sentenced to retribution by the lower court. Accordingly, the ninth branch of the Tehran Provincial Criminal Court, headed by Judge Mohammad Reza Mohammadi Kashkuli, sentenced Najafi to retribution.

Mitra Ostad's family avoided retribution. Masoud, Mitra Ostad's brother, wrote on his Instagram: "Through the mediation of the elders of Kermanshah and the country, as well as our beloved lawyers, Mr. Masoud Afrazeh and Mahmoud Hajluei, my father, my mother, and our Mahyar, we forgave Mr. Mohammad-Ali Najafi and forgave the blood of our beloved, and we are happy that we did not make any deal with the blood of that noble man." Mohammad-Ali Najafi protested the ruling. On September 21, 2019, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court's ruling due to deficiencies in the investigation and ruled that "an expert opinion should be obtained on how the bullets were fired."

In the new report, the experts rejected the initial report that the bullets were fired directly at the victim, stating that "the shots were not direct and that the bullet entered his body after hitting Mitra's hand and changing its shape, causing his death."

The case of Mitra Ostad's murder was once again referred to Branch 9 of the Criminal Court, and a retrial was held on Novermber 27, 2019. Najafi denied the charge of premeditated murder, citing the new expert report, but the court once again sentenced him to seven and a half years in prison for premeditated murder. Six years of that sentence was enforceable.

On March 29, 2020, Goodarzi, Najafi's lawyer, announced that he had appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court. He said that on the one hand, the sentence of 6 years and 6 months of imprisonment for intentional murder and 1 year and 3 months of imprisonment for carrying a weapon is a "heavy punishment" and that the court could have reduced it due to the existence of "mitigating factors". On the other hand, they consider the murder to be quasi-intentional and for this reason they have appealed to the Supreme Court.

On May 3, 2020, the Supreme Court once again overturned the court's ruling and referred the case to the same branch. The third round of hearings on Mohammad Ali Najafi's case was scheduled to be held in closed session in Branch 10 of the Criminal Court.

In the court held on April 4, 2020, presided over by Judge Matin, Najafi said that he had paid about 10 billion tomans to satisfy the victim's family, of which about 8 billion was Mitra Ostad's 1362-Bahar Azadi Coin.

Finally, Branch 10 of the Criminal Court sentenced Mohammad Ali Najafi to six and a half years in prison. Hamidreza Goodarzi, Najafi's lawyer, told IRNA on Friday, May 15, 2020: "We are protesting this ruling, which is against the Supreme Court's decision."

The Supreme Court also ruled that the case was premeditated murder and upheld the verdict.

Cultural references

The story of Iranian politicians' femicide was depicted in the series Aghazadeh (2012), which, according to the news websites IMNA and Ensaf News, is reminiscent of Najafi's femicide.

See also

• Shahla Jahed
• Wikipedia Farsi

References

This page will be placed in the following categories if it is moved to the article namespace.

Categories:

• May 2019 in Asia
• Murder in Iran
• Iranian murder victims
• Deaths by firearm in Iran