Iran: Juvenile offender Bahman Salimian at imminent risk of being executed

Juvenile offender Bahman Salimian is again at imminent risk of being executed. His family told his lawyer on or around 22 January that they had received notification of his execution, now scheduled to take place on 5 February in Esfahan prison.

Bahman Salimian was sentenced to qesas (retribution) by Branch 33 of the Supreme Court for the murder of his grandmother, committed in 1996 when he was 15 years old. He was due to be executed on 28 August 2008, but the judicial authorities halted his execution three days before the execution date, to allow for further attempts to negotiate a pardon from his uncle, the only relative who still insists that Bahman Salimian should be executed. His two other uncles have pardoned him.

Throughout his trial, Bahman Salimian repeatedly claimed that his 70-year-old grandmother had talked of committing suicide, and so he had killed her to minimize her suffering. On hearing Bahman Salimian's unusual motive for the murder the trial judge ordered that he be psychologically assessed. Experts concluded that he was suffering from a psychological disorder and, accordingly, the judge sentenced him to five years' imprisonment and the payment of diyeh (financial compensation, also called "blood money"), to be paid by his parents. Some members of his grandmother's family appealed, and demanded the death penalty for Bahman Salimian's crime. Branch 33 of the Supreme Court overturned the lower court's verdict, and sentenced him to qesas.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Since 1990 Iran has executed at least 42 juvenile offenders, eight of them in 2008 and one on 21 January 2009. The execution of juvenile offenders is prohibited under international law, as stated in Article 6 (5) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Iran is a state party to and so has undertaken not to execute anyone for crimes committed when they were under 18.

In Iran a person convicted of murder has no right to seek pardon or commutation from the state, in violation of Article 6(4) of the ICCPR. The family of a murder victim have the right either to insist on execution, or to pardon the killer and receive financial compensation (diyeh). Under the Iranian law regulating qesas, if one member of the victim's family refuses to pardon the convict, even if the other family members have received the appropriate amount of diyeh, the death sentence will be implemented.

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Source: Amnesty International, January 31, 2009

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