A 26-year-old man was hanged for the second time on Wednesday in Iran, several months after a first execution interrupted at the last minute while the condemned man had been suffocating for around thirty seconds at the end of a rope, a non-governmental organization reported.
Ahmad Alizadeh was arrested in October 2018 for a murder that he denied having committed, then sentenced to death, said in a press release the organization Iran Human Rights (IHR), which records from Norway the application of the death penalty in Iran.
The sentence was first carried out on April 27 in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, near Tehran. But the victim’s family suddenly shouted “sorry”, while the condemned man had already been hanged for 28 seconds. His body was then removed, the condemned person revived and the execution suspended, according to the IHR.
According to Islamic law (Sharia) in Iran, a victim’s family can decide to forgive the murderer, or request payment of compensation. In most cases, however, the condemned person’s family cannot afford to pay the requested amount, and the sentence is ultimately carried out, according to human rights defenders who monitor these cases.
Failing to reach an agreement with the victim’s family, Alizadeh therefore remained under threat of a new hanging since April, which occurred on Wednesday, according to the IHR.
“Ahmad Alizadeh, a talented student, was hanged a second time for a murder charge he disputed and which he claimed he only finally admitted under torture,” said IHR director , Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, denouncing “the execution machine of the Iranian regime”.
Human rights activists accuse Iranian authorities of using the death penalty to instill fear in society, particularly after the protest movements that shook the regime in 2022 and 2023.
Last October alone, the IHR reported 166 executions, a record monthly figure since this organization began recording the application of capital punishment in Iran in 2007.
According to several human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Iran is the country in the world that executes the largest number of people, with the exception of China, for which no figures can be obtained.
