Hamid Pourmand

Hamid Pourmand (; born 1958) is a former army colonel in the Iranian army and a lay leader of the Jama'at-e Rabbani, the Iranian branch of the Assemblies of God church in Bandar Bushehr, a southern port city in Iran.

Personal background Hamid Pourmand is married to Arlet, who is an Assyrian Christian. They have two sons, named Immanuel and David. Under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran, it is illegal for a non-Muslim to serve as a military officer. In spite of this, Hamid Pourmand continued to serve as an officer in the Iranian army. According to his family and Christian acquaintances, Hamid Pourmand was quite open about his Christian faith and never attempted to conceal his religious conversion.

Pourmand frequently served as the volunteer pastor of a congregation of the Assemblies of God Church in Bushehr. The Iranian Assemblies of God Church is a Pentecostal Protestant group belonging to the Assemblies of God, derived from the Assemblies of God USA.

At the time of his 2004 arrest, his wife and children were visiting relatives in Tehran. Upon returning to Bushehr, they discovered that their house had been broken into and vandalized. Personal items, such as family papers, documents and photographs had been removed from the family home. Although Dibaj was released three weeks later following protests from the international community initiated by his close friend and colleague Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, he was murdered six months later. Dibaj's murder was soon followed by the abduction and murder of Haik Hovsepian Mehr three days later. Like Pourmand, both Dibaj and Mehr were members of the Jama'at-e Rabbani Church.

The last execution to have taken place for apostasy in Iran was on December 3, 1989, when the evangelist and pastor of the Jama'at-e Rabbani Church in Mashad, Rev. Hossein Soodmand was hanged until death.

On May 28, 2005, a court in Bushehr acquitted Hamid Pourmand on further charges of apostasy and proselytizing, declaring that "under Sharia law, there are no charges against you." During the hearing, the judge reportedly told him, "I don't know who you are, but apparently the rest of the world does. You must be an important person, because many people from government have called me, saying to cancel your case." However, Iran's judiciary stated on May 2, 2005, that Pourmand was in jail for breaking the law and not because of his religion.

Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad claimed that Pourmand had been "involved in a political group" while serving in the armed forces, which is forbidden by Iranian law. The spokesman also stated that Hamid Pourmand "appealed the three-year sentence, but the appeal court upheld the lower court's conviction."

During the court hearings in February, court officials reportedly declared that for many years Pourmand had belonged to "an underground church through which many Muslims had deserted Islam and became Christians".