He was sentenced to a total of 7 years in prison, but due to the implementation of Article 134 of Iran’s new Islamic Penal Code he was released after five years on July 5th, 2015. Article 134 requires convicts with multiple charges to be released after having served their longest sentence.

Agents from the Intelligence Ministry arrested Mehdi Khodaei, an electrical engineering student and former secretary at the Islamic Association of Azad University for the first time in July 2007 whereby he was charged with activities against the regime and taken to Ward 209 of Evin Prison.

He spent 40 days in solitary confinement and reports were released that he was beaten and tortured during this period. As a result, he had to be hospitalized for three days at a clinic known to have affiliations to the Intelligence Ministry. He was tried without a lawyer present at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Abolghasem Salavati.

On February 24nd 2010, the judge sentenced him to four years in prison - a sentence that was upheld by the appeals court. At the same time, the university’s disciplinary committee disciplined him for his political activity by not allowing him to sign up for another semester.

On March 2nd 2010, whilst he was waiting to be summoned to prison for his first arrest, agents working for the Revolutionary Guards re-arrested him for something else. Placed in Ward 2A of Evin Prison, he spent many days in solitary confinement, during which he was harshly interrogated and pressured into giving a televised confession. In the second instance, he was tried at Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Moghisei and then in October he was sentenced to three years in prison.

The appeals court upheld the verdict and added it to his initial sentence that totaled seven years. Khodaei spent 10 months in Ward 2A and was then transferred to communal Ward 350 after the appeals court issued its verdict. In June 2011, he was one of 12 prisoners held in Ward 350 that went on hunger strike to protest against the death of Haleh Sahabi and Reza Hoda Saber.

According to Maryam Sharbatdar Ghods, wife to hunger striker Fayzollah Arabsorkhi, the 12 men had witnessed how violently Evin Prison security personnel had treated Saber just before he died of a heart attack whilst in detention. Khodaei was denied a furlough for an extended period of time because he had gone on hunger strike. After being in prison for three years, he was finally granted leave in March 2013. However, in November 2013, he joined another hunger strike.

“Prominent human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani, and three other political prisoners, Amir Khosro Dalirsani, Mehdi Khodaei and Saeed Madani, went on ‘wet’ hunger strike (drinking water but not eating) in Tehran’s Evin Prison at the beginning of November to protest against the lack of medical care, as well as the Iranian authorities’ refusal to grant medical leave to some prisoners who required specialized treatment outside prison,” reported Amnesty International in a statement.