HRANA News Agency – Samko Khelghati, graduated from Sharif University of Technology in metallurgy field, has been exiled in Tabas prison.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Samko Khelghati, who is a M.Sc. graduate in metallurgy, from Sharif University of Technology, and former employee of Arak heavy water plant, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, including 5 years in exile, and for this reason has been kept in different prisons around the country.
Samko Khelghati was arrested in 2009 in Arak, and has been interrogated and tortured in intelligence service’s solitary confinement. He claimed that under these pressures he gave an interview and confessed that the heavy water plant was just to serve for peaceful purposes like cancer cure. This interview went on air as a documentary with the name of “Zamani Baraye Khiyanat” (A time for betrayal) on Press TV and Dariched TV.
Then he was transferred to Evin prison and was interrogated in wards 209 and 240, and was even threatened to be executed.
In 2010, this political prisoner was tried in branch number 15 of the revolutionary court by judge Salavati, and charged with cooperation with Kurdistan Democratic Party and whistleblowing critical information of peaceful nuclear program to foreigners. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years prison in exile, in Tabas prison. The verdict was submitted verbally and he was told by judge Salavati, that his sentence would be changed to death if he would appeal.
Mr. Khelghati had been transferred between Rajaei Shahr and different wards in Evin prison, during the period of 2010 to 2015. In 2012 he was kept in wards 350, 122 and 209 of Evin, and was twice transferred to Rajaei Shahr prison.
In summer of 2015, Mr. Khelghati was transferred to Arak prison on his own request, in order to have more efficient appeal, and he applied for appeal with the hope that article 134 of accumulation of charges could be applied to him. This request was rejected, and he was recently exiled to Tabas prison.