Nasr-Azadani was arrested in September over the death of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, despite his family claiming that he was “nowhere near” the area where the commander was killed. He was not originally named as being arrested, but Saeed Azari, former director of Zob-e-Ahan and Foulad clubs, confirmed the footballer’s arrest on Instagram.
Azari posted photos of Nasr-Azadani and Voria Ghafouri, two Iranian football players who were arrested by security forces. “A hero is not exactly a politician,” he wrote. “He is a man with a free-thinking soul. If he gives an opinion, it is because of the people who gave him his identity, in the heat and in the cold.”
One of Nasr-Azadani’s relatives told IranWire that his family had been threatened by security forces in the days following his arrest, and that if they “disclosed the news of his arrest”, he would be given the most severe sentence possible.
