Majid Kavousifar: A Hero Who Mocked the Executioner’s Gallows

On August 2, 2007, Majid Kavousifar was hanged by the repressive judiciary of Iran’s regime—with a smile on his face.

Majid was a young man who, on August 2, 2005, shot and killed Hassan Ahmadi Moghaddas—Deputy Prosecutor of Tehran and Head of the Ershad Judiciary Complex (the so-called Morality Prosecutor’s Office on Vozara Street)—on Bucharest Street in Tehran. Moghaddas was responsible for the imprisonment, torture, and execution of many people and political and social activists.

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After fleeing the country, Majid and his nephew Hossein Kavousifar went to the United Arab Emirates and sought asylum at the U.S. embassy. However, embassy officials handed them over to Emirati police, who in turn extradited them to the Iranian regime.

Following his extradition, the Iranian regime sentenced Majid Kavousifar to death in a show trial. Exactly two years after the killing of Hassan Ahmadi Moghaddas, on the same date, he was hanged.

Death Sentence Issued by “Judge” Salavati

His death sentence was issued by the notorious judge Abolqassem Salavati.

It is worth noting that “Judge” Salavati was sanctioned by the U.S. State Department on December 19, 2019, for his role in extrajudicial executions. While the U.S. added Salavati to its sanctions list, it has never addressed the role of its embassy in handing over Majid Kavousifar to the executioners of Iran’s regime.

Iran hangs judge’s killers in public

Majid Kavousifar Approached the Gallows Smiling and Waving

As Majid Kavousifar was taken to be executed, he smiled and waved to the people with his hands bound.

Reuters selected the photo of Majid Kavousifar and his nephew Hossein Kavousifar—smiling triumphantly as they were hanged from a crane—as its Photo of the Decade.

The photo, taken by a Reuters photographer, captured the moment the two young Iranians were hanged on August 2, 2007.

In its caption, Reuters wrote: “The Iranian regime hanged Majid and Hossein on Thursday in front of hundreds of onlookers for killing a judge who had imprisoned a number of dissidents.”