HRANA – Mohammad-Mehdi Soleimani, one of those arrested during the 2022 nationwide protests and later sentenced to death, is currently held in Ward 1 of Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad.

In November of last year, the Mashhad Criminal Court sentenced him to death on the charge of killing a Basij member. His case is now under review by the Supreme Court.

HRANA first identified him as a death-row prisoner in January 2025. Mr. Soleimani was arrested by security forces in Mashhad in October 2022 and transferred to Ward 1 of Vakilabad Prison in March 2023. After more than two years in legal uncertainty, he was tried in November 2024 at Branch 5 of Criminal Court One in Razavi Khorasan Province. Presiding judge Mohammad Shoja’pour-Fadaki sentenced him to death for the alleged killing of Rasoul Doost-Mohammadi, a Basij member, during the Mashhad protests. His case remains under Supreme Court review.

A source familiar with the case told HRANA: “Mohammad-Mehdi has been denied access to a chosen lawyer at every stage of the legal process.”

In the same case file, he has also been sentenced to pay blood money and serve two and a half years in prison for inflicting bodily harm, and to two years and six months in prison plus 74 lashes for possessing explosive and incendiary materials.

State media previously claimed that on September 22, 2022, Mr. Soleimani stabbed and fatally wounded Rasoul Doost-Mohammadi, a Basij member, on a street in Mashhad.

Mohammad-Mehdi Soleimani is originally from Quchan, lived in Mashhad, and was approximately 20 years old at the time of his arrest.