Born in November 1994, Ehsan Khodadadi is a 31-year-old native of Yuzbashi-Kandi village, located in the Malekan region near Tabriz. Back in 2013, during his mandatory military service, he was a provincial wrestling champion. According to Behzad Yavari, before his arrest, Ehsan worked in his father’s fruit orchard and cared for his ailing elderly mother, who suffered a stroke following Ehsan’s arrest on June 6, 2024, and remains bedridden in poor condition.
Those close to Ehsan Khodadadi state that he only studied up to middle school, though the case file falsely lists him as holding a high school diploma. Ehsan had been summoned by security agencies once before in 2023, during the height of the parliamentary elections, for posting Instagram stories related to the case of Salman Khodadadi, the Malekan representative in the 10th Parliament, who had previously been accused of rape by Zahra Navidpour, a resident of Malekan. Following Ms. Navidpour’s suspicious death, the case was silenced.
According to Behzad Yavari, a fellow townsman of Ehsan, he was released at the time after signing a commitment letter. However, documents reviewed by IranWire reveal that posting those stories is still cited as a “crime” in his current file. The other criminal charge leveled against Ehsan Khodadadi involves “matters related to sending an audio file containing the coordinates and specifications of sensitive military centers to Mossad,” which allegedly occurred on April 16, 2024. One of the documents examined by IranWire is the prosecutor’s office’s “final disposition sheet” against Ehsan Khodadadi.
