Iranian rapper's death sentence overturned

A jailed Iranian rapper sentenced to death for supporting anti-government protests has had his sentence overturned on appeal by the Supreme Court, his lawyer has said.

Toomaj Salehi was arrested in October 2022 after making public statements in support of protests that had exploded across Iran.

His lawyer, Amir Raesian, said the Supreme Court has now ordered a retrial, and that the judges decided that Salehi's previous prison sentence of six years and three months went against Iran's multiple-offences rules, and was in excess of the legal punishment.

Salehi, 32, was initially sentenced to prison in July 2023, after avoiding a death sentence due to a Supreme Court ruling.

But the following January, the Revolutionary Court in the city of Isfahan charged him with new offences.

He was sentenced to death in April for the capital offence of “corruption on earth”.

The musician was also found guilty of a string of other offences, including assistance in sedition, calling for riots, collusion and propaganda against the state.

Index on Censorship, a campaign group which has been working with Salehi's family to free the rapper, welcomed the decision to overturn the death sentence.

But it said: "It is critical that his rights are properly respected."

Salehi's case has been returned to court for resentencing. "Even a shorter period of imprisonment would be an injustice," said the Index on Censorship.

"Salehi has done nothing other than to call for his, and other Iranians’, fundamental rights to be respected."

Through his songs and lyrics, Salehi was infamous for boldly criticising Iran’s leaders for their corruption and crackdowns on dissent.

He had expressed support for the 2022 protests, which were sparked by the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody.

Amini, 22, was visiting Tehran with her family when she was detained by the religious police for allegedly wearing an “improper” hijab.

The crackdown on the protests led to the deaths of hundreds of people, and the arrest of thousands more.

Before the nationwide unrest, Salehi was already an established artist and known as an outspoken figure. He was posting his songs on social media because he was banned from performing in concerts.

Source: BBC News, Staff, June 23, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

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

— Oscar Wilde

Boston Marathon bomber’s appeal of death sentence marked by delays and secrecy

As the city marks the 12th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sits on federal death row for admittingly detonating bombs at the finish line that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Yet, his fate remains uncertain after a decade of legal wrangling, as his lawyers continue to challenge his death sentence. The federal judge who presided over his 2015 trial was ordered by an appeals court in March 2024 to investigate defense claims that two jurors were biased and should have been stricken from the panel. If he finds they were, then Tsarnaev is entitled to a new trial over whether he should be sentenced to life in prison or death, according to the appeals court.

USA | Who are the death row executioners? Disgraced doctors, suspended nurses and drunk drivers

These are just the US executioners we know. But they are a chilling indication of the executioners we don’t know Being an executioner is not the sort of job that gets posted in a local wanted ad. Kids don’t dream about being an executioner when they grow up, and people don’t go to school for it. So how does one become a death row executioner in the US, and who are the people doing it? This was the question I couldn’t help but ask when I began a book project on lethal injection back in 2018. I’m a death penalty researcher, and I was trying to figure out why states are so breathtakingly bad at a procedure that we use on cats and dogs every day. Part of the riddle was who is performing these executions.

Singapore executes man for 2017 murder of pregnant wife and daughter

Teo Ghim Heng, who strangled his pregnant wife and four-year-old daughter in 2017 before burning their bodies, was executed on 16 April 2025 after exhausting all legal avenues. His clemency pleas were rejected and his conviction upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2022. Teo Ghim Heng, who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and their four-year-old daughter in 2017, was executed on 16 April 2025. The Singapore Prison Service confirmed that Teo’s death sentence was carried out at Changi Prison Complex. In a news release on the same day, the police stated: “He was accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel both at the trial and at the appeal. His petitions to the President for clemency were unsuccessful.”

Indiana Supreme Court sets May 20 execution date for death row inmate Benjamin Ritchie

The condemned man has exhausted his appeals but is likely to seek a clemency plea. Indiana Supreme Court justices on Tuesday set a May 20 execution date for death row inmate Benjamin Ritchie, who was convicted in 2002 for killing a law enforcement officer from Beech Grove. The high court’s decision followed a series of exhausted appeals previously filed by Ritchie and his legal team. The inmate’s request for post-conviction relief was denied in Tuesday’s 13-page order, penned by Chief Justice Loretta Rush, although she disagreed with the decision in her opinion.

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

Indonesia | British grandmother who has spent 12 years on death row hugs grandchildren for first time as they visit Bali prison

Lindsay Sandiford, 68, reportedly shared 'cuddles and kisses' with her loved ones for the first time in years A British grandmother who has been stuck on death row in Bali for more than a decade has been reunited with her loved ones for the first time in years. Lindsay Sandiford has been locked up in Indonesia's notorious Kerobokan Prison since 2013 after being found guilty of trying to smuggle £1.6million of cocaine into the country.

USA | They were on federal death row. Now they may go to a supermax prison.

A group of federal prisoners filed a lawsuit this week accusing the Trump administration of seeking to move them to a supermax prison to face tougher conditions as punishment for having their death sentences commuted by President Joe Biden. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life in prison without parole. After his inauguration, Trump ordered that the former death row prisoners be housed “in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

Louisiana to seek death penalty for child killer despite Biden’s commutation

CATAHOULA PARISH, La. — While a federal death row sentence has been reclassified by former President Joe Biden to life without parole, the State of Louisiana still seeks the death penalty for a man convicted of the kidnapping, torturing and murdering a child in Catahoula Parish. According to a statement by the Seventh Judicial District of Louisiana District Attorney Bradley Burget, on Monday, a Catahoula Parish Grand Jury indicted Thomas Steven Sanders for the first-degree murder of 12-year-old Lexis Kaye Roberts in 2010.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog