Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i

Iran Human Rights recorded 604 executions in the first nine months of 2026, and on 14 October the judiciary headed by Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i added Ali-Sina Mostafavi, a 38-year-old musician and professional mountaineer from Kerman. Iran's Judiciary Media Center said a Revolutionary Court had convicted him of moharebeh, or "enmity against God," over armed attacks in Kerman and that the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence before it was carried out. The judiciary also accused him of supporting exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi and of links to Israel. Those accusations come from the state; no independent body has tested them.

The accountability line is institutional. The conviction, the Supreme Court review and the execution all ran through a judiciary that Mohseni-Eje'i leads. Published reporting does not show that he personally signed Mostafavi's death warrant, and none is claimed here. HRANA, citing the Judiciary Media Center, reported the same execution and the judiciary's account of shootings on 24 March and 21 April.

The scale is the human cost. Iran Human Rights counted 604 executions in January to September 2026; HRANA, using its own methodology, documented about 854 by the end of July. The two totals come from different methods and are not combined here, but both point the same way: executions at an exceptionally high level, including cases tied to protests, security allegations and wartime accusations.

The strongest defence offered by Tehran is that Mostafavi was convicted of violent armed offences, not peaceful dissent, and that the Supreme Court reviewed the case. The counterweight is that execution is irreversible and that rights monitors have repeatedly raised due-process concerns in national-security capital cases. What comes next is whether the courts under Mohseni-Eje'i publish evidence and reasoning in the cases still pending, and whether the pace of executions slows or rises.

Latest developments (2026-10-15)

Under Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Iran's judiciary is facing renewed scrutiny after a court sentenced 23-year-old accounting student Najmeh Amini to death for alleged sab ol-nabi, or insulting the Prophet, over social-media activity. Reporting published on 14 October says the same case also produced lengthy prison terms on national-security and propaganda charges. The exact posts at issue have not been made public in the reporting used here, and Amini's lawyers can appeal the death sentence to Iran's Supreme Court. That legal posture matters: she has been sentenced, not executed, and the judgment is not yet final.

The case adds to pressure on the judiciary over Iran's wider 2026 execution surge. Rights reporting cited by the Guardian and Iran Human Rights documents more than 600 executions this year, while the state maintains that capital cases proceed through judicial process and review. The immediate accountability question for Mohseni-Ejei is institutional: as chief justice, he leads a system using capital punishment in a speech-related case while an appeal remains available. The appeal will test whether the Supreme Court narrows, overturns or upholds that use of the death penalty.