Iran Supreme Court upholds death sentence for teenage boy

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29 – Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a 17-year-old schoolboy over the murder of his younger friend. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29 – Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence for a 17-year-old schoolboy over the murder of his younger friend.

The teenager identified only by his first name Ali was originally sentenced to execution by a court in Tehran on 23 July 2007, the government-owned news agency Fars reported on Saturday.

He had been found guilty of convincing his eight-year-old friend Ahmad to have sex with him, and later murdering him in December 2005. Ali purportedly decided to kill Ahmad out of fear upon discovering that Ahmad had started to bleed. The report said that Ali had confessed to strangling Ahmad.

Ali faces imminent execution, following the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the death sentence.

Under Iranian law, girls above the age of nine and boys above the age of fifteen are considered as adults and could be executed for capital offences.