The brother of Khosro Alikordi, the deceased attorney, announced that security forces of Iran’s regime have confiscated all sixteen surveillance cameras from his brother’s office. He warned that if the complete footage from all cameras is not provided to the family in full, he will bring his brother’s case to international forums and demand justice.
At his brother’s memorial service, Javad Alikordi spoke about the uncertainties surrounding his death. He said that after his brother’s body was discovered, regime security forces removed all the surveillance cameras from his office, and despite the family’s repeated follow-ups, no footage has been shared with them.
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He emphasized that discovering the truth about his brother’s death depends entirely on handing over complete and unedited footage to the family. He warned that if even “one second” of the videos is missing, he will no longer trust the judicial mechanisms of Iran’s regime and will not pursue the case through them.
In his remarks, the grieving brother said: “I peacefully declare that all sixteen cameras from the office must be given to us without any omissions, otherwise I will raise the cry for my brother’s blood in international forums.”
Alikordi’s body was found on the morning of December 6 in his office in the city of Mashhad. Many social media users, along with several lawyers and political and civil activists, described his death as a “state murder.”
On the social media platform X, this attorney had introduced himself as “the lawyer of the protesters of the nationwide 2022 movement, a former political prisoner, barred from pursuing a PhD in Public Law at the University of Tehran, and a flagged graduate student at Allameh University.”
On December 7, Iran Human Rights reported, quoting Alikordi’s relatives, that his body showed signs of bruising, head trauma, and blood coming from the nose and mouth. The family has still not been able to obtain the cameras or review their footage.
This human rights organization, noting the long record of Iran’s regime in killing political dissidents, artists, writers, and protesters—including political assassinations carried out by the Ministry of Intelligence in the 1990s known as the “Chain Murders”—called for the establishment of an independent international fact-finding commission to investigate the case.
A killing involving state institutions?
The suspicion that government bodies may have been involved in this killing is extremely serious. Since Iran’s regime lacks independent oversight or investigative mechanisms, and its officials are never held accountable nor provide transparency, only an independent international investigative commission can uncover the truth behind the suspicious death of Khosro Alikordi.
Hassan Hosseini, the governor of Mashhad, claimed that Alikordi “died” in his office on Friday evening due to a “heart attack.”
Statements by these security-aligned officials were met with strong reactions from civil activists and political prisoners inside Iran, many of whom held the regime responsible for Alikordi’s death.
A group of political and religious prisoners held in Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison issued a joint message describing Alikordi’s death as “heartbreaking and suspicious,” offering condolences to his family.
In their message, they referred to him as an “independent, honorable, and compassionate lawyer” who had worked courageously for years defending the rights of political and religious prisoners.
Alikordi’s ambiguous death has once again intensified concerns about the personal safety of independent lawyers, civil activists, and critics of Iran’s regime. His case is one that his family, human rights organizations, and political prisoners insist must be investigated through independent and international channels.
