Australia – SBS, October 13, 2024
Shokrollah Jebeli had been living in Australia for more than three decades when he returned to his native Iran. He was in his 60s and, despite living happily in Sydney with his family since 1976, decided to return to his hometown of Tehran in 2007 to live out his elderly years.
It’s a decision that ultimately cost him his life.
In early 2020, Jebeli was detained by Iranian authorities and sent to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where he was held for more than two years on charges relating to two separate financial disputes. His family maintain the charges were false.
In March 2022, the then 83-year-old Iranian-Australian dual citizen was found dead in his cell after falling critically ill.
His son Peyman Jebeli, who had worked tirelessly to raise money to fund his father’s legal case from Australia, says Iranian authorities denied him access to vital medication and subjected him to torture by deliberately and repeatedly denying him healthcare.
“None of it makes sense,” he tells SBS News.
Shokrollah and his family had been fighting to overturn the four-and-a-half-year sentence handed down over one of the two financial disputes brought against him prior to his death — the second case was ongoing.
According to Amnesty International, the octogenarian’s trial was unfair: the judge presiding over his case denied him a lawyer of his own choosing and refused to consider evidence that could help him.
Shokrollah’s son says he will never forget the phone call he received in early 2020 that brought the news his father had been arrested.
“I was just stunned,” he says.
“You can’t sleep. You feel like you shouldn’t be living a normal life when someone who’s so dear to you and close to you is experiencing terrible pain.”
