A leaked investigation purportedly prepared by Iranian security officials states that three men harassed and murdered an Iranian adolescent female.
The disappearance of 16-year-old Nika Shakarami from an anti-regime demonstration in 2022 was mapped out in documents.
Officially, authorities claimed she committed suicide.
The report, which has the designation “Highly Confidential,” provides an overview of a hearing that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which protects the Islamic State, convened to discuss Nika’s case. The identities of her assassins and the high-ranking military officials who attempted to cover up the facts are revealed in it.
Protesters in Iran, incensed by the country’s stringent regulations on the mandatory headscarf, chanted her name as the demonstrations swept the nation in the fall of 2022.
It took almost a week after Nika vanished from a demonstration before her family located her body at a morgue. However, the Iranian government denied any connection between the protest and Nika’s murder.
Those surrounding her were chanting, ‘Death to the dictator!’ Unbeknownst to them, they were all being surveilled. Due to her out-of-character actions and constant phone calls, Team 12 suspected Nika of being a protest leader. The group sent in an operator pretending to be a protester to verify. He then ordered his crew to grab her, but she escaped.
Along with three other members of Team 12, Sadegh Monjazy, Arash Kalhor, and Behrooz Sadeghy, Nika was taken into custody and put in an unlabeled van.
Team boss Morteza Jalil was in the lead. Overcrowding prevented them from finding a secure location to bring Nika. After he sought counsel from his IRGC headquarters, Morteza Jalil was instructed to go to the infamous Evin Prison in Tehran.
Afterwards, while in the vehicle, Monjazy sexually attacked Nika. Sadegh Monjazy refuted the claims that they lost control and began to punch and kick Nika and instead said that Nika had kicked at Monjazy’s head, prompting Monjazy to defend himself.
When Jalil signaled for the vehicle to stop, they discovered Nika lifeless. After another phone call to the IRGC headquarters, Jalil talked with a senior commander named “Naeem 16,” who gave him the order to leave her for dead.
The investigation identified the beatings inflicted by Team 12 as the direct cause of Nika’s death.
The UN fact-finding mission in Iran found that security forces killed 551 protesters during the Woman, Life, Freedom campaign. Aida, Nika’s older sister, had also been held in custody.
