Pastor Saeed Abedini took to Facebook to describe how, when he was still detained in Iran, he was taken out of prison and brought to Day Hospital in Tehran to be tortured while his mother watched.
The pastor, who was incarcerated for three and a half years in an Iranian prison, commented on a recent report that the U.S. has added Sohrab Soleimani, former director general of the Tehran Prisons Organization, to its sanctions list.
"Soleimani is the guy who beat me in hospital in Front of my Mom," Abedini wrote on Facebook.
According to Abedini, Soleimani, accompanied by 60 soldiers, went to the hospital and tortured him.
"They attack me and they grabbed me and they throw me to their car like a lamb," he recounted, "and when hospital nurses came to help me they punched them to their chest and throw them to the wall."
They reportedly chained his hands and feet to the bed and prevented him from going to the restroom.
"You should surrender your son to me," Soleimani told his mother, Abedini said.
After torturing him, the authorities reportedly brought him back to Rajaeeshar prison and did not give him the medical treatment he needed.
The Tehran Prisons Organization oversees the notorious Evin Prison where political prisoners are known to be tortured. This is where Maryam Naghash-Zargaran, an Iranian Christian woman who was arrested for her involvement in the church that Abedini led, is being held.
Soleimani also heads the Office of the Deputy for Security and Law Enforcement of the State Prisons Organization. He is the brother of Qassem Soleimani, Iran's military chief and a high-profile figure in Iran, who leads the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guards.
On Thursday, the U.S. government announced that Soleimani is subject to U.S. sanction, adding that he was responsible for overseeing the torture and abuse of prisoners in Evin Prison in Tehran, AFP reported.
"The sanctions against human rights abusers in Iran's prison come at a time when Iran continues to unjustly detain in its prisons various foreigners including US citizens," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement.
"We join recent calls by international organizations and UN human rights experts for the immediate release of all US citizens unjustly detained or missing in Iran," he added.
Abedini mentioned on his Facebook post that the head of Day Hospital, Dr. Nazeri, was allegedly involved in moving him from prison to the hospital at the time when Soleimani tortured him. Nazeri was apparently a close friend of his estranged wife Naghmeh's father.
Abedini said he has witnessed some of his friends in prison suffer in the hands of Soleimani.
"I have been witness that so many of my friends in prison have been killed by this evil man and his mafia group," he wrote.
The Iranian American pastor has created a buzz lately because of several social media posts in which he criticized evangelical leaders Franklin Graham and George O. Wood. On a recent Facebook post, Abedini said although he was thankful for their help, he was also resentful that they did not speak up to help clarify issues on his behalf regarding the accusations of Naghmeh.
Abedini's ex-wife had accused him of abuse and said he was involved in extra-marital relations.
He ended the post by saying he will "start to rebuild" his life.
"Those who believe will believe. Those who don't never will," he wrote. "I don't intend on spending any more time worrying about it. I do pray God's blessings on them all, and on all of you as well."
