TRANSCRIPT
Reza Akbari was only hours away from facing execution for his political activities in Iran in 1988.
Nearly 40 years later, having escaped to Australia, the memories of waiting on death row still haunt him.
"You can't say, don't be scared of death; death is just in one minute. You are going to be hanged or you are in front of a firing squad. Anyway, it ends. But when you are alive and carry all the trauma and memories that resonate constantly in your dreams, in your flashbacks - okay, it is awful."
Reza says on the day he was scheduled to be executed, the killings “suddenly stopped” amid internal pressure.
He fled Iran, but from his new home in Australia, he can't escape the memories of what happened to him.
He recalls a moment he saw Ebrahim Raisi, who was then Iran's deputy prosecutor general, from his cell.
"He loudly said (to the director of the prison) 'just put them in the cells one by one'. I will come back on Wednesday and end it. …They not only killed people in that massacre, but they killed a lot of people emotionally and psychologically."
When Mr Raisi rose to the presidency in 2021, human rights groups called for him to instead be investigated for crimes against humanity.
While the exact number of those killed in 1988 remains unknown, Amnesty International estimates at least 5,000 political prisoners were executed.
This is Nikita White, international issues campaigner for Amnesty International Australia.
"The death commissions asked them to renounce their politics and if they refused, many of them were executed and Raisi was a member of one of these death commissions... In 2018, Raisi actually described the mass killings as one of the proudest moments of the Islamic Republic system."
For many, his career was characterised by the use of brutality to crush dissent.
This is Saba Vasefi, an expert on state-sponsored violence at the University of Sydney.
She escaped persecution in Iran for her research on capital punishment.
"His ruthless legacy is not limited to 1988, but also it was ongoing until the recent uprising after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini."
Shohreh Entesari is still seeking justice for her brother, Farshid, a political prisoner executed in 1988 at 34 years old.
The death of Ebrahim Raisi has stirred up mixed emotions.
"I was happy - and sad at the same time, sad because , my mother and my father weren't able to see this moment, a little bit of comfort that this Butcher of Tehran was killed. And also a bit of sad, because I really wanted him to stand trial."
She says there is no accountability - just the grief for a life cruelly taken.
SBS has contacted the Iranian embassy for comment, but has not received a response.
