Skip to main content

Iran | Executions in Karaj, Birjand, Tabriz, Kerman, Gorgan

Iranian authorities have executed a prisoner identified as Eghbal Arghandeh in Karaj Central Prison. He had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder.”

According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the execution of 30-year-old Eghbal Arghandeh was carried out at dawn on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Karaj Central Prison.

Sources told Hengaw that Arghandeh had been arrested approximately six years ago in connection with a fatal street altercation and was later sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary.

Iranian state media, particularly outlets affiliated with the judiciary, have not officially announced the execution.

Executions in Birjand, Tabriz, Kerman and Gorgan


Iranian authorities have executed five prisoners, including three Baloch prisoners identified as Younes Zirakari, Heydar Bamari (Moradkhani), Mehdi Bamari (Moradkhani), as well as Naser Langarani and Omid Sadeghi Souri, in prisons across Birjand, Tabriz, Kerman and Gorgan.

The prisoners had previously been sentenced to death on charges related to drug offenses and premeditated murder.

According to information obtained by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, the executions of Heydar Bamari (Moradkhani) and Mehdi Bamari (Moradkhani), two 27-year-old Baloch prisoners from Delgan in Sistan and Baluchestan province, were carried out at dawn on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Kerman Central Prison.

The two men had been arrested three years ago in a joint case in Kahnooj on drug-related charges and were later sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary.

In a separate case, the execution of Younes Brahoui (Zirakari), a 29-year-old married man from Zahedan, was carried out at dawn on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Birjand Prison. He had also been sentenced to death on drug-related charges.

On the same day, the execution of Naser Langarani, a 42-year-old father of one, was carried out in Gorgan Central Prison. He had been arrested around three years ago on charges of premeditated murder and later sentenced to death.

Additionally, Omid Sadeghi Souri, a 26-year-old Turkish prisoner, was executed in Tabriz Central Prison at dawn on Sunday, May 10, 2026.

Sadeghi Souri had been arrested four years earlier on charges of premeditated murder following a street altercation and was later sentenced to death.

Iran executes Mohammad Abbasi amid accelerating wave of wartime executions


Iranian authorities have executed Mohammad Abbasi, a detainee arrested during protests earlier this year, at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj amid a rapidly escalating wave of executions carried out under wartime conditions.

According to information obtained by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Abbasi, a resident of Malard in Tehran Province, was secretly executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, at Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj. He had been arrested alongside his daughter during protests earlier this year. Mizan News Agency, the official media outlet of Iran’s judiciary, later confirmed the execution.

Abbasi was arrested in connection with the killing of a police officer identified as Shahin Dehghani Kakavandi during protests in Malard. He was subsequently sentenced to death on charges of “waging war against God” (moharebeh) by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Abolghasem Salavati.

Branch 39 of Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the sentence while preventing independent lawyers, including Ali Sharifzadeh Ardakani, from participating in the proceedings under provisions tied to Article 48 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The case was reviewed solely in the presence of a court-appointed lawyer lacking the necessary independence.

In the same case, Fatemeh Abbasi, Mohammad Abbasi’s daughter, was sentenced to 25 years of discretionary imprisonment and is currently being held in the women’s ward of Evin Prison, a measure that reflects the systematic retaliation and increased pressure exerted by security institutions against the families of protesters.

Hengaw Organization for Human Rights warns that since the outbreak of military conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States, the Islamic Republic has sharply accelerated its use of executions. With the execution of Mohammad Abbasi, at least 32 prisoners facing political and security-related charges have been executed during this period.

Source: hengaw.net, Staff, May 13-15, 2026




"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
Globe
Death Penalty News For a World without the Death Penalty

Comments

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

Oklahoma | Richard Glossip on Life After Decades on Death Row

In an exclusive interview at home in Oklahoma City, Glossip describes his first days of freedom in a world he hasn’t experienced for nearly 30 years. For three decades, Richard Glossip lived on concrete. First at the Oklahoma County jail, after his arrest for murder in 1997, and then in the underground bunker housing death row inmates at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. As with the rest of his surroundings, he eventually got used to the hard, unforgiving floors, although recently he’d developed painful swelling in his legs.

Florida | 2-time Jacksonville baby abuser is set for execution

Thirty years ago while on probation for fracturing an infant’s skull, Andrew Lukehart inflicted at least five blows to the head of another baby, then concocted a story that she was abducted before eventually leading authorities to her body in a swamp area.  At 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 2, the 53-year-old from Jacksonville is set to become Florida’s eighth man on death row to be executed in 2026. He will become the 36th under Gov. Ron DeSantis after a record 19 inmates were executed by the state in 2025, including another from Duval County: Michael Bell.

Florida executes Andrew Richard Lukehart

Jacksonville man who killed his girlfriend’s 5-month-old baby in 1996 executed 30 years later A Jacksonville man who confessed to killing his girlfriend’s 5-month-old daughter and throwing her body in a pond 3 decades ago was executed on Tuesday evening.  Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, was scheduled to receive a 3-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke.  He was sentenced to death after being convicted of aggravated child abuse and felony murder in the death of Gabrielle Hanshaw. The baby’s mother told News4JAX she plans to attend the execution.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term:   Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Tennessee | Questions Raised About the Doctor Who Was Overseeing Tony Caruthers’ Execution

Mark Fowler, according to a deposition, had not placed a central line in a patient for more than a decade when he attempted to put one in Carruthers Around 11 a.m. Thursday morning in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, a medical doctor stepped in and attempted to place a central IV line in Tony Carruthers’ chest. By that point, the prison staff had spent some 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to insert a backup IV line that would allow them to proceed with the lethal injection. According to Carruthers’ attorney Maria DeLiberato, who was in the room, after asking a staff member to attempt inserting a line through Carruthers’ jugular vein, the doctor moved on to the central line, which is identified as the last resort in Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol .

Iran executes Esma Zarei in Ardabil Prison after she gave birth in custody

Hengaw – Saturday, May 23, 2026. Iranian authorities have executed Esma Zarei, a 28-year-old Turkish woman from Parsabad in Ardabil Province, who had previously been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder” in connection with the killing of her husband. She is the sixth woman executed in Iran since the beginning of 2026. According to information received by Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Zarei was executed at dawn on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in Ardabil Central Prison. She had been sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) after being convicted of her husband’s murder.

Can the state execute a man who already survived? | Opinion

A second execution would be an unimaginable nightmare for Tony Carruthers and a moral horror for the rest of us. Tony Carruthers is not supposed to be alive . On May 21, Tennessee set out to execute him. It failed. Carruthers survived. He is not the first person to survive an execution in the United States, and he won’t be the last. For Carruthers, the question is: Now what? Will the state seek to arrange a second execution?

Florida | The Daily Routine of Death Row Inmates

The breakfast carts rattle through the concrete prison at about 5:30 am and as they approach Death Row the first sounds of morning repeat the last sounds of night - remote controlled locks clanging open and clunking closed, electric gates whirring, heavy metal doors crashing shut, voices wailing, klaxons blaring. A maximum security prison has no soft or delicate sounds. At the end of each corridor of death row cells a guard opens a heavy door of steel bars and a prison trusty pushes a breakfast cart inside. The door closes behind him and when it locks a second door opens and admits the trusty to the wing. He steers his cart along the wing stopping at each cell to pass a tray of powdered eggs and lukewarm grits through a small slot on the bars.

Iraq: German schoolgirl, 17, turned jihadi bride escapes death penalty and is jailed for six years

GERMAN Jihadi bride Linda Wenzel has been jailed for six years in Baghdad for her role as an Islamic enforcer with terror group ISIS. Wenzel, 17, who last year sobbed on TV “I have ruined my life,” could have faced the death penalty. German media reported that a German embassy representative in Iraq was in court yesterday to witness her sentencing. She received five years for joining IS and one year for entering Iraq illegally. Wenzel was found in the rubble of IS stronghold Mosul back in the summer of 2017. Charges were laid against her and three other German women captured with her. Schoolgirl Wenzel fled to Turkey then into Syria last year from her hometown of Pulsnitz in eastern Germany after being groomed online by a Chechen IS fighter who she married. He was killed in the savage fighting for Mosul while she was employed by the terror group enforcing the strict Islamic dress code on women in the city. She burst into tears after her capture and said s...