Iran | 'He Stabbed Her 14 Times': A Father's Deadly Rage and the Law That Shields Him

“Dad is here. He found the salon.”

Those words, spoken frantically by 17-year-old Fatemeh Soltani to her mother over the phone at 9 AM on April 16, would be among the last she ever uttered.

Within minutes, the streets of Islamshahr in Tehran would become the stage for an unthinkable act of violence – a father murdering his own daughter in broad daylight.

Amir Mohammad Soltani raced through the city streets on his motorcycle after overhearing his sister’s desperate call, but he arrived too late.

He saw a crowd gathered around an ambulance, police tape, and the body of his sister - her throat partially severed, her life draining away in a roadside water canal.

“I hugged her,” he recalls. “I felt her move for a moment, and then everything was over.”

This is not just the story of a murder. It is the culmination of years of systematic abuse - the final chapter in a family’s desperate struggle to escape the grasp of a violent man who controlled their lives through fear, intimidation, and relentless cruelty.

And in Iran’s legal system, it is a crime for which there will be no proportional justice.

Amir Mohammad said, “We had been living at my uncle’s house for a while. The person, whom I unfortunately have to call my father, had thrown us out after a big fight. It was around 9 AM when Fatemeh called my mother and said Dad was there - he had found the salon.”

Fatemeh had been working professionally in beauty salons for nearly three years. She had recently changed her salon location due to harassment from her father.

A source who spoke with IranWire said, “Fatemeh had kept the new workplace address hidden from her father.

“She was very afraid of him. Her father had burned the SIM card he had bought for her, so Fatemeh got another SIM card in her mother’s name and used that number for appointments on her work page.

“She didn’t even have any customers that day, but said a woman had called, saying she needed to travel and wanted to come to the salon in the morning.

“Later, it became clear that the call was fabricated - her father had lured Fatemeh to the salon with a premeditated plan and killed her.”

Fatemeh’s brother described how he rode ahead of the ambulance on his motorcycle, trying to clear the way to the hospital.

“I wasn’t aware of my own state - I was just moving ahead of the ambulance, shouting so we could get there a few minutes earlier, as if I still had hope that my sister might survive.”

He said his father’s voice echoed in his ears the entire time - the same voice that had told him on the phone before arriving at Fatemeh’s workplace, “I’ve left you with grief.” Amir Mohammad had thought his father had merely taken Fatemeh away to torment the family.

“According to an eyewitness and CCTV footage,” Amir Mohammad said, “when my father arrived at Fatemeh’s workplace, he asked her to get into the car.

“As soon as she did, he stabbed her with a knife. Fatemeh got out of the car to escape, but he hit her with the vehicle, got out, threw her into a water ditch, and inflicted 13 more stab wounds.”

He added that due to Fatemeh’s constant fear and anxiety about their father, he often took her to work and back by motorcycle.

"She was terrified of him - we all were. We never had a day of peace. Sometimes, I would take Fatemeh to her workplace by car or motorcycle and wait nearby until she finished work so we could return together.”

Amir Mohammad says the shadow of domestic violence loomed over him, his mother, and his sister for as long as he could remember.

“The first time, I was seven years old. I came home from school alone and knocked on the door, but no one answered. Later, I found out my father had beaten my mother, and she had left the house in anger.”

As the children grew, they began to defend their mother, an “exceptional woman” who had stayed in the marriage for their sake. This defiance only intensified Khanali’s hatred toward his children.

In 2015, a particularly vicious assault left half of their mother’s face permanently damaged. Somehow, through “fear, pleading, begging, and promises,” Khanali convinced her to return.

The cycle continued.

What finally triggered Khanali’s murderous rage? According to Amir Mohammad, Fatemeh had recently discovered her father’s infidelity and told their mother.

“Since then, he had developed a deep grudge against Fatemeh,” her brother explained.

But the seeds of resentment had been planted long before. While Khanali spent his money “having fun with friends and other women,” his wife worked, saved, and supported the family financially.

Fatemeh followed in her mother’s footsteps, building financial independence through her nail business - another act of defiance in her father’s eyes.

Article 301 of the Islamic Penal Code explicitly states that if the killer is the victim’s father or paternal grandfather, there will be no execution. The maximum punishment is 3 to 10 years in prison.

As the children grew older, the balance of power in the household began to shift. No longer were they helpless victims of their father’s rage - they became protectors of themselves, each other, and their mother.

For a man like Khanali, who ruled through fear and violence, that loss of control was intolerable.

“Fatemeh had a big, kind heart,” Amir Mohammad said. “She was simple. She was successful in her work and progressing every day.”

In her final year of high school, Fatemeh excelled in clothing design. She confided in her brother, who became her silent guardian, often taking her to meet friends at cafes without their father’s knowledge.

Most of all, she dreamed of escape.

“She always said that one day we would leave and be free from Dad,” Amir Mohammad recalled. “But unfortunately, Fatemeh became the sacrifice for our freedom from this man.”

In the aftermath of the murder, as the family grapples with grief, they face another cruel reality: under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, a father who kills his child cannot face the death penalty.

As legal expert Musa Barzin explains, Article 301 of the Islamic Penal Code explicitly states that if the killer is the victim’s father or paternal grandfather, there will be no execution.

The maximum punishment Khanali faces is 3 to 10 years in prison - a sentence determined by the prosecutor, not by the wishes of Fatemeh’s devastated mother and brother.

“We want the maximum punishment; we want execution,” Amir Mohammad pleads. “This man will not be deterred. Even if imprisoned for 15 years, he will come out hoping for revenge against us.”

The ripples of Fatemeh’s murder extend beyond her immediate family.

Amir Mohammad’s girlfriend - a friend of Fatemeh’s- ended their relationship, too frightened to remain connected to the family.

Even at the police station, Khanali attacked his son when they came face to face and threatened to kill his ex-wife, his son, and even his son’s friends.

“If the laws had been such that every time we went to court for violence and beatings, the law would have protected my mother and us, this wouldn’t have happened,” Amir Mohammad said.

The family had reported Khanali’s violence numerous times over the years. Help rarely came, and when it did, it was often too late to be useful.

When Fatemeh was being stabbed to death, bystanders - believing they were witnessing a robbery - called the police, who arrived promptly.

But the countless calls from the family over the years of abuse had mainly gone unanswered or were met with delayed responses.

“It’s the ineffectiveness of the Islamic Republic’s laws that led to Fatemeh being killed so brutally,” Amir Mohammad said.

Source: Iran Wire, Samira Rahi, April 24, 2025

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

— Oscar Wilde