Reporting from Beirut — Nearly a month later, she can’t erase images of the dying young man from her mind.
All but two of his upper teeth had been knocked out. His nails had been pulled out. His head had been bashed in. His kidneys had stopped working. But what most disturbed her, she said, were the stitches around his anus — a sign, the nurses told her, that he had been raped.
Iranian reformist websites and activists in recent days had identified 19-year-old Mohammad K. as one of the protesters arrested during Iran’s postelection unrest, locked up in the Kahrizak detention facility and severely beaten.
He died in the late hours of July 16 or the early hours of July 17 at a hospital in Tehran, according to the websites.
But the woman, a secretary at a downtown Tehran company who told her story to The Times on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said he was also a victim of jailhouse sexual torture. Such accusations are making waves in Iran after the release this week of a letter by a prominent reformist politician.
“Since then I am deeply depressed,” said the woman, who was at Loghman hospital visiting a relative when she discovered Mohammad K., whose full name is being withheld because of the sensitivity of the allegation. She helped overworked nurses change his bandages.
“I cannot sleep. I take tranquilizers. I have lost 20 pounds. I cannot eat properly. His toothless face is not erasable,” she said.
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