Iran | Executions in Gorgan, Sanandaj, Kahnuj, Ilam

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 22, 2023: State media have reported the execution of an unidentified man for murder in Gorgan.

According to Iran Online, a man was executed in Gorgan. The report which was published on 20 June, does not specify the date or exact location of the execution. The man only named as Hamed, is alleged to have committed murder on Hashem Abad Street on 28 May 2021.

According to the 2022 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 582 people were executed in Iran. Of those, 288 were executed for murder charges.

Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness.

Man Executed in Sanandaj

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 21, 2023: Hemen Mostafayi, a Kurdish man sentenced to death for the murder of an IRGC officer, has been executed in Sanandaj Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a Kurdish man executed in Sanandaj Central Prison on 21 June. His identity has been established as 33-year-old Hemen Mostafayi from Marivan. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

An informed source previously told Iran Human Rights: “Hemen was arrested for the murder of an IRGC officer in February/March 2013 and sentenced to death. He accepted the charges after being subjected to months of hard torture and interrogations.”

Hemen was previously transferred for execution on 31 December 2020 which was postponed due to civil society backlash and the victim’s family agreeing. Iran Human Rights reported his transfer yesterday

At the time of writing, his executions has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

According to the 2022 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 582 people were executed in Iran. Of those, 288 were executed for murder charges.

Man Executed in Kahnuj

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 20, 2023: Danesh Salari, a Baluch man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed in Kahnuj Prison.

According to Hal Vash, a Baluch man was executed in Kahnuj Prison on 19 June. His identity has been reported as 24-year-old Danesh Salari from Koulgan village in Roudbar.

He was arrested for murder around three years ago in Kahnuj and sentenced to qisas for murder by the city’s Criminal Court.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Four Men Executed for Drug Charges in Kerman

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 20, 2023: Four men including three Baluch minorities, were executed for drug-related charges in Kerman Central Prison.

According to Hal Vash, four men including three Baluch men were executed in Kerman Central Prison on 18 June. The three Baluch men’s identities have been reported as” Gholam Mir from Zabol and a Zahedan native, Mohammad Sepahi from Saravan and 35-year-old Fazl Ahmad Ghafran (AKA Yousef Rakhshani).

Mohammad Sepahi had three children and Fazl Ahmad Ghafran was a father of two.

The report does not specify the name or charges against the fourth man.

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Ethnic minorities, the Baluch in particular, are grossly overrepresented in execution numbers in Iran. In 2022, at least 174 Baluch minorities including 3 women, were executed in 22 prisons across Iran, making up 30% of overall executions. This is while they represent just 2-6% of Iran’s population.

Baluch minorities also represented almost half of drug-related executions in 2022. 47.3% of the 256 people executed for drug-related charges were Baluch.

Man Executed for Murder in Ilam

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); June 20, 2023: Aref Havas has been executed for murder in Ilam Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Ilam Central Prison on 20 June. His identity has been established as Aref Havasi from the Malekshahi tribe in Ilam. He was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

An informed source told Iran Human Rights: “Aref Havasi was arrested two years ago for a murder committed during a group fight in Chardaval and sentenced to death.”

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Source: Iran Human Rights, Staff, June 20-22, 2023

_____________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW US ON:

CONTACT: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

Violent and sudden. What a firing squad execution looked like through my eyes

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — I’ve now watched through glass and bars as 11 men were put to death at a South Carolina prison. None of the previous 10 prepared me for watching the firing squad death of Brad Sigmon on Friday night. I might now be unique among U.S. reporters: I’ve witnessed three different methods — nine lethal injections and an electric chair execution. I can still hear the thunk of the breaker falling 21 years later. As a journalist you want to ready yourself for an assignment. You research a case. You read about the subject.

South Carolina Executes Brad Sigmond

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat was executed by firing squad Friday, the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to die by that method, which he saw as preferable to the electric chair or lethal injection. Three volunteer prison employees used rifles to carry out the execution of Brad Sigmon, 67, who was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. Sigmon killed David and Gladys Larke in their Greenville County home in 2001 in a botched plot to kidnap their daughter. He told police he planned to take her for a romantic weekend, then kill her and himself.

America’s next killing spree: 10 days, five states, six death-row prisoners set to die

Desolate spectacle of executions begins again under Trump, in landscape of capital punishment as riven as US is as a whole David Leonard Wood. Jessie Hoffman. Aaron Gunches. Wendell Grissom. Edward Thomas James. Moises Sandoval Mendoza. So many names. So many dead men walking. Ten days, five states, six death row prisoners scheduled for execution. For a decade now, capital punishment in the US has been on the wane. Last year, for the 10th year running, there were fewer than 30 executions in America, and the number of new death sentences is also tracking at historic lows.

Todd Willingham: Ex-wife says convicted killer confessed

The former wife of a man whose 2004 execution in Texas has become a source of controversy has said he admitted setting the fire that killed their three daughters during a final prison meeting just weeks before he was put to death, according to a Texas newspaper. Stacy Kuykendall, the ex-wife of Cameron Todd Willingham, said in a statement to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published Sunday that Willingham told her he was upset by threats to divorce him after the new year. The fire that killed the couple's three girls was Dec. 23, 1991. Her last threat to divorce him, she said in a statement, occurred the night before the fire. "He said if I didn't have my girls I couldn't leave him and that I could never have Amber or the twins with anyone else but him," according to the statement from Kuykendall to the newspaper. Willingham went to his death proclaiming his innocence. And over the years, she has offered differing accounts. A Tribune investigation in 2004 showed the...

Iranian dissident risked execution by secretly filming luxurious lifestyle of those connected to the regime

Iranians in Tehran illicitly filmed scenes of their capital for Israeli Channel 12 news, an act that constitutes espionage in Iran and can warrant a death penalty. The clips, broadcast on Saturday, showed locals at high-end shopping malls that the videographers said are only financially accessible to those connected to the regime. “I filmed this video with great difficulty and fear, and I said I would send it to the Israeli Channel 12,” said a 44-year-old Iranian who sent footage for the report and went by the alias Ali, speaking in Persian. “I committed a dangerous act. If you just talk to Israelis, you become a spy and they will execute you.”

Indonesia | Briton faces death penalty for trafficking a kilogram of ecstasy in Bali

A British man is facing the death penalty for allegedly dealing a kilo of MDMA in Bali. Thomas Parker was seen for the first time since his January arrest on Thursday, paraded in front of media in an orange jumpsuit in Denpasar. The 32-year-old could face a firing squad if he is found guilty of trying to push the 1.055kg of Class A drugs police say they recovered in a mail package. MDMA is the main component in the party drug ecstasy. Parker was arrested outside an Airbnb in January, but the case went unreported until authorities showed the Brit shaven and handcuffed at a press conference yesterday.

Texas | Court stays execution of Texas man days before he was set to die by lethal injection

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court on Tuesday halted the execution of a man who has spent more than 30 years on death row and had been set to die by lethal injection this week over the killings of six girls and young women found buried in the desert near El Paso. It was the second scheduled execution in the U.S. halted on Tuesday after a federal judge stopped Louisiana’s first death row execution using nitrogen gas, which was to take place next week. In Texas, the order was another reprieve for David Leonard Wood, who in 2009 was about 24 hours away from execution when it was halted over claims he is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for execution.

South Carolina death row inmate chooses firing squad as execution method

Brad Sigmon, 67, is scheduled to be killed on March 7 A South Carolina death row inmate has chosen to be executed by a firing squad, which would make him only the fourth inmate in the U.S. to die by this execution method. Brad Sigmon, 67, who is scheduled to be killed on March 7, informed state officials on Friday that he wishes to die by firing squad rather than by lethal injection or the electric chair, citing, in part, the prolonged suffering the three inmates previously executed in the state had faced when they were killed by lethal injection.

South Carolina plans to carry out a firing squad execution. Is it safe for witnesses?

South Carolina plans to execute a man by firing squad on March 7, the first such execution in the state and the first in the nation in 15 years. But firearms experts are questioning whether South Carolina's indoor execution setup is safe for the workers who will shoot the prisoner and the people who will watch. Photos released by the South Carolina Department of Corrections show that the state intends to strap the prisoner, Brad Sigmon, to a metal seat in the same small, indoor brick death chamber where South Carolina has executed more than 40 other prisoners by electric chair and lethal injection since 1985.

Biden Commuted Their Death Sentences. Now What?

As three men challenge their commutations, others brace for imminent prison transfers and the finality of a life sentence with no chance of release. In the days after President Joe Biden commuted his death sentence, 40-year-old Rejon Taylor felt like he’d been reborn. After facing execution for virtually his entire adult life for a crime he committed at 18, he was fueled by a new sense of purpose. He was “a man on a mission,” he told me in an email on Christmas Day. “I will not squander this opportunity of mercy, of life.”

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog