After chatting with friends, the man gets into his car parked down a quiet road.
Two trucks loaded with armed men draw up alongside him. Within seconds two shots are fired.
The man clings to life as he desperately hits the accelerator and manages to hurry his car the 240 metres it needs to travel to reach his home.
His family and neighbours pull him from the vehicle.
But they cannot save him. He dies from his injuries.
His attackers don’t know their actions have been caught on camera.
Discreet CCTV cameras record the killing that – at first glance – is cold-blooded enough to suggest it is a gangland killing or a political assassination.
We now know the man is a father-of-two, a local businessman. He was 40 years old. Married. He is described as a kind person, a family man and a writer of poems and songs. He’s sorely missed by his loved ones.
Why would anyone kill Motaleb Saeed-Pirou?
Image:
Motaleb, pictured in one of his Instagram posts
We’ve broken down the vital eence from the CCTV footage into key frames to reveal just how chilling this killing is.
This is the moment Motaleb was attacked.
It happened in Baneh in Iran’s Kurdistan region.
It’s a commercial hub known for being a great place to shop.
The city’s northwest periphery is a quiet part of town…
… mostly home to a few shops, warehouses and residences.
It’s where Motaleb lives, and where he found himself on the afternoon of October 27.
We’ve been able to verify his location by matching what we can see in the CCTV footage with a satellite image proed by Planet.
The camera gives us the date according to the Iranian calendar and the time: 4.15pm.
Motaleb is standing by his car when he sees something that makes him frightened.
A white Toyota Hilux and a sand coloured Land Cruiser pull up. Experts tell us these vehicles are commonly used by Iran’s feared Revolutionary Guard – or IRGC.
Motaleb immediately scrambles to get inside his car.
The men begin to terrorise Motaleb. A man in the back of the white truck points his gun at Motaleb, but doesn’t shoot.
Two men in plain clothes jump out and crowd his car.
One begins to smash Motaleb’s car windows.
Motaleb begins to drive away, but the attackers aren’t finished yet. This man fires straight at him.
This second man also fires. You can see the smoke from the gun.
The men in the second truck seem surprised – they stand up to get a better look at what has happened.
Motaleb manages to drive the 240 metres back to his home but his wounds are serious.
He’s pulled from the car by his family and neighbours. He dies from his injuries.
Loved ones left behind
“I have no joy anymore,” Motaleb’s cousin Raman tells us from his home in Sweden. “When I found out I did not know what to say… even today I feel tearful when you ask me about him.”
Raman and Motaleb, five years his senior, grew up together in Iran.
“Motaleb was very down to earth. He was very sociable, serious and kind. People were fond of him,” he says.
Image:
Raman, left, with his cousin Motaleb. The pair grew up together in Iran
Sky News has only spoken to those members of Motaleb’s family who do not live in Iran. People in the country who speak to the media can face punishment.
Raman tells us the whole family saw Motaleb as “an integral part of the family in bad and good times”.
“He was very good and cared about everyone,” he said.
Image:
Motaleb’s wife and children are in mourning, his cousin Raman told Sky News
Motaleb’s wife and two children, aged 13 and 16, are grieving. Raman tells us the family can’t believe this has happened to them.
The tragedy for the family doesn’t end with Motaleb’s death.
Family members attempting to travel from a neighbouring Iraqi village to attend the funeral were shot at by Iranian forces. They say they had the correct permissions to cross the border yet two men were hospitalised, and a third died.
Image:
and friends mourn at Motaleb’s grave
What else does the CCTV footage tell us?
The two types of Toyota are models associated with the regime and appear to feature in other s from Baneh.
Image:
The two trucks in the are a Toyota Hilux and a Toyota Land Cruiser. The licence plates and other small details are too blurry to make out
Clips verified by Sky News show the same or very similar trucks being used to police the streets in the city on different days. The footage shows the vehicles patrolling the streets of Baneh with guards firing at civilians.
Image:
These screenshots from other s capturing protests in Baneh show trucks that are the same or similar to the ones seen in the CCTV. Credit: IranWire
The men in the back of the second truck give us further important clues.
Their helmets, uniforms and weapons indicate that this is a mix of IRGC and Basijis – paramilitary officers allied with the Iranian regime.
Image:
The CCTV footage proes key eence in unravelling who killed Motaleb
With this context, the men in the white truck are likely to be regime forces in plain clothes. At least 12 men took part in the intimidation and attack on Motaleb.
The attackers’ chaotic actions suggest they were not carrying out orders to deliberately kill this popular local father.
In the breakdown of the CCTV footage above, we can see that the men do not immediately kill him but spend time intimidating Motaleb and smashing his car’s window. We also see the men in the second truck appear surprised at the gunfire.
The CCTV also shows how one man doesn’t appear to interact at all with Motaleb, instead he runs towards other people in the area who began to flee when the trucks arrived.
He and eventually other members of the group also attack another nearby vehicle – appearing to smash its windows.
‘Terrorise the neighbourhood’
Dr Saeid Golkar, the author of Captive Society: The Basij Militia and Social Control in Iran, reviewed the footage of the attack for Sky News. He believes the men are likely regime forces acting on orders to instil fear in the community in an attempt to repress local protests.
“We can assume that they were deployed to this neighbourhood mostly because there were some kind of protests in the days before,” he says.
“They have sent these forces to terrorise the neighbourhood and to send the message ‘we are going to punish you’.”
Image:
Motaleb in a photo he posted to his social media
He explains the Islamic Republic attempts to maintain order by creating what he characterises as “a chilling atmosphere” in order to terrorise people using “unpredictable violence” and “brutality”. Effectively, the men carrying out these orders have a carte blanche.
Dr Golkar says: “This is a very good example of how they are enforcing and implementing that strategy… [The IRGC and Basij] know that nobody will come after them and they know that they’re not going to stand in court and be held responsible for their behaviour.”
Read more:Mass protests and government buildings attacked – online eence shows what’s happening in IranThe secret police carrying out daylight abductions
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5:38
Who killed Motaleb Saeed-Pirou?
On the day Motaleb was attacked, security forces may have been instructed to increase the intimidation of locals in a bid to quash further protests as the day before had seen a surge in demonstrations.
Protesters in Baneh and other cities across Iran had been marking the end of the mourning period of Mahsa Amini, the young Kurdish-Iranian woman whose death during her arrest sparked the protests that are continuing to sweep the country.
The protests are now in their tenth week and appear to have grown more bloody within the last ten days. At least 37 protesters and bystanders, including three children, have been killed by the security forces since Tuesday 15 November, Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network told Sky News.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) has been tracking protests across the country.
Its most recent data shows how between 16 September and 11 November the Kurdish region has been one of the most active for protests after the death of Amini.
It also shows that Motaleb’s city of Baneh is not one of the major protest locations, yet our investigation shows it has still been brutally policed.
The local Iranian authorities have commented on Motaleb’s death.
A state-affiliated news report reported that the Kurdistan governor’s political and security deputy claimed Motaleb was a rioter and had been killed by an unknown group of armed men.
Image:
A news article report claimed the authorities said they didn’t know who was responsible for Motaleb’s death
The comment appeared before the CCTV footage surfaced, which shows Motaleb was not taking part in a protest or acting as a rioter, nor was he a threat.
The also shows the men are likely to be connected to the Iranian authorities.
Sky News asked the Iranian embassy in the UK if they wished to comment on the CCTV eence, but they did not respond.
Motaleb’s family say he was not politically active, nor did he take part in the protests, which otherwise may have made him a target. Sky News has also been unable to find any direct links between Motaleb and organised groups.
Image:
Motaleb, left, was described by those who knew him as a family man
For Dr Golkar, the answer is clear.
He said: “We can assume that Motaleb was a man in the wrong place [at] the wrong time and became the target of the brutality of the IRGC and Basij who come to this neighbourhood to terrorise people.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to proing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
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