Amnesty International: Imminent execution, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh: Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh has reportedly been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, who allegedly tried to rape her then 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage. She is reportedly at risk of imminent execution.
According to a 6 October report in the Iranian newspaper Etemad, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh murdered her husband in 1997. Amnesty International
URGENT ACTION
IRAN Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh (f) aged 33
Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh has reportedly been sentenced to death for the murder of her husband, who allegedly tried to rape her then 15 year old daughter from a previous marriage. She is reportedly at risk of imminent execution.
According to a 6 October report in the Iranian newspaper Etemad, Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh murdered her husband in 1997. At her trial she alleged that her husband, identified as a 30 year old man named Bahman, was a drug addict, who had been overtly interested in her 15-year-old daughter. She also told the trial judge that Bahman had said he had lost the girl in a gambling match. When she later discovered that he had tried to rape the girl, she killed him.
It is not known when Fatemeh Haghighat-Pajouh was arrested. According to the report in Etemad, the sentence has been upheld by the Supreme Court, although it is not known when. In Iran, all death sentences have to be approved by the Supreme Court before they can be implemented. The Etemad report states that her execution is expected to take place in the next few days.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a state party. Article 6 of the ICCPR states: In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes.
