AFP: An Iranian youth was hanged for rape in the city of Kermanshah despite his victims withdrawing their complaint and a judicial decree quashing his death sentence, a newspaper reported on Thursday. TEHRAN (AFP) An Iranian youth was hanged for rape in the city of Kermanshah despite his victims withdrawing their complaint and a judicial decree quashing his death sentence, a newspaper reported on Thursday.
The 20-year-old man, identified only as Makouan, was executed in the Kermanshah prison on Wednesday morning, the report in Etemad Melli said, quoting his lawyer.
“On November 11 … the head of the justice administration of Kermanshah received an order from the judiciary head, Ayatollah (Mahmoud) Hashemi Shahroudi, to stop the implementation of the verdict,” Saeed Eqbali was quoted as saying.
“But the case, which was supposed to be reviewed in Tehran, was sent back from there to Kermanshah and the execution was carried out quickly (without any revision),” the lawyer said.
Makouan had spent seven years in jail after he was arrested at 13 for raping three teenagers, who later withdrew their complaint.
The young man’s case was reminiscent of the stoning to death of Jafar Kiani for adultery in July in a village in the northwestern province of Qazvin despite a 2002 directive to suspend the practice.
The latest execution brings to at least 280 the number of people hanged in Iran this year, according to an AFP count compiled from local press reports. Many are hanged in public.
Iran executed at least 177 people in 2006, according to Amnesty International. The Islamic republic is the most prolific applier of the death penalty in the world after China.
Capital offences in Iran include murder, rape, armed robbery, serious drug trafficking and adultery.
