Tehran, July 23, (dpa/GNA) – The human rights organization Amnesty International, called on Tuesday for an investigation into the Israeli attack on Iran’s notorious Evin prison around four weeks ago, calling it a possible war crime.
“Under international humanitarian law, a prison or place of detention is presumed a civilian object, and there is no credible evidence in this case that Evin prison constituted a lawful military objective,” Amnesty said in a report published on Tuesday.
During Israel’s brief war with Iran, the Israeli Air Force bombed several areas of the detention centre in Tehran. Israel characterized the attack as a symbolic strike against the Iranian government.
Activists and former inmates, said the attack endangered the lives of political prisoners.
The Iranian judiciary says at least 71 people were killed in the bombing.
Amnesty estimates that between 1,500 and 2,000 prisoners were in the detention centre during the air strikes, including political prisoners and foreigners who had been convicted in controversial trials.
With the war ongoing, the Iranian judiciary transferred numerous inmates to other prisons. In some cases, relatives still do not know where their family members are. Evin Prison is considered a site of serious human rights violations.
Iranian judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir, said on Tuesday that 27 prisoners who had escaped in the chaos following the attacks, were still at large. A total of 75 inmates had fled, 48 of whom had since been recaptured, he was quoted as saying by the Iranian state news agency IRNA.
GNA