Skip to main content

Iran | Executions in Dezful, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Tabriz

Iranian authorities have executed three prisoners, including two Lors and one Arab, in separate cases at prisons in Dezful, Isfahan, and Ahvaz. The prisoners, Emad Mirdoraghi, Mostafa Karimzadeh, and Seyed Sadegh Mousavi, had been sentenced to death on charges of murder or drug-related offenses.

Based on information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Emad Mirdoraghi, a Lor from Andimeshk, was executed at Dezful Central Prison in Khuzestan Province at dawn on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.

Informed sources said Mirdoraghi had been arrested 10 years earlier, when he was 18 years old, on a murder charge and subsequently sentenced to death.

Mostafa Karimzadeh, a 54-year-old Lor from Borujerd, Lorestan Province, was executed at Isfahan Central Prison at dawn on Tuesday, September 22. He had been arrested three years earlier on drug-related charges and sentenced to death.

Seyed Sadegh Mousavi, a 43-year-old Arab from Ramshir (Khalifeh), was executed at Sepidar Prison in Ahvaz in late September. He had been arrested four years earlier on a murder charge.

Iranian state media and judiciary-affiliated outlets have not reported any of the three executions.

Executions in Ahvaz, Tabriz

Iranian authorities have executed four prisoners, including three Arab men and one Turkish man, in separate cases at Sepidar Prison in Ahvaz and Tabriz Central Prison in recent days. The four prisoners, Hossein Ghazlavi, Karim Majdam, Jalil Salamat, and Eskandar Heydarzadeh, had all been sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder.”

According to reports received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Jalil Salamat, an Arab man from Ahvaz, was executed at Sepidar Prison at dawn on Tuesday, September 22, 2026. He had been arrested six years earlier and sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder.”

Karim Majdam, a father of four, was executed at the same prison on Monday, September 21. He had been arrested four years earlier and sentenced to death on the same charges.

Hossein Ghazlavi, also an Arab prisoner, was executed at Sepidar Prison on Wednesday, September 16, after spending 11 years in prison on charges of “premeditated murder.”

Separately, Eskandar Heydarzadeh, a 45-year-old Turkish man from Tabriz, was executed at Tabriz Central Prison at dawn on Monday, September 14. He had been arrested five years earlier and sentenced to death on charges of “premeditated murder.”

None of the four executions has been announced by Iranian state media or judiciary-affiliated outlets.

Executions in Isfahan

Iranian authorities have executed two prisoners, Vahid Vafaei and Zeinab Rajabi, in separate drug-related cases at Isfahan Central Prison (Dastgerd Prison). Rajabi, a woman with diabetes, had been sentenced to death in a case involving drugs stored at her home that belonged to a relative.

Based on information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Vafaei, a 47-year-old man from Sari, the capital of Mazandaran Province, was executed at dawn on Monday, September 14, 2026, at Isfahan Central Prison.

Vafaei, who was married and a father of three, had been arrested two years earlier on drug-related charges and subsequently sentenced to death.

In a separate case, Rajabi, a 46-year-old woman from Isfahan, was executed at the same prison at dawn on Sunday, September 13, 2026.

Rajabi had been arrested approximately four years earlier after agreeing, amid severe financial hardship, to allow her home to be used to store drugs belonging to her brother-in-law. At the time, she was struggling to cover living expenses and the medical costs of her husband, who has a disability.

Despite her husband's testimony in court, as well as statements that Rajabi had acted out of financial desperation and did not own the drugs, the judiciary sentenced her to death. Her brother-in-law, identified as the principal defendant in the case, was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

The executions of Vafaei and Rajabi have not been announced by Iran's official media or judiciary-affiliated outlets.

Source: Hengaw, Staff, September 22-24, 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)

Saudi Arabia executes two Bangladeshis over 'immoral act' inside mosque

Saudi Arabia has carried out the death penalty on two Bangladeshi nationals in Mecca. The country's Interior Ministry announced this in a statement on Wednesday. According to the report, they were sentenced over allegations of involvement in immoral acts inside a mosque in Mecca. The information was reported by Ajel News, citing the Saudi Interior Ministry's statement. The two Bangladeshis executed were a man and a woman, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Sithi Akhter. The “immoral acts” referred to illicit heterosexual intercourse, not homosexual activity.

Florida | William Reaves set to be executed on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m.

With his execution date looming, convicted killer William Reaves will soon be moved from Raiford's Union Correctional Institution to a death watch cell in nearby Florida State Prison, a maximum-security complex also known as "The Rock." Reaves, 77, a former Gifford resident in Indian River County who’s been on death row for 38 years, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Oct. 20 at 6 p.m. His execution will fulfill a sentence of death imposed for the 1986 fatal shooting of Indian River County Sheriff’s Cpl. Richard “Raz” Raczkoski outside a Zippy Mart store on State Road 60 west of Vero Beach.

Saudi Arabia executes woman, 'terrorists', 'indecent' couple, and juvenile offenders

Saudi Arabia carried out a series of executions in mid-October, including that of a woman convicted of killing her mother and attempting to kill her sister, alongside five men in the Eastern Province. Official statements described the five as terrorists; human rights groups described them as political prisoners sentenced under discretionary (ta’zir) penalties, one of whom was a child at the time of the alleged acts. The cases illustrate the kingdom’s continued use of the death penalty under Sharia, its stated commitment to public order and justice, and criticism from human rights organizations over the scope of capital punishment.

Florida | Former firefighter, police officer sentenced to death in Fort Pierce killing

Otto Lenke, a Sebastian resident and former Indian River County firefighter/paramedic, as well as a former Melbourne police officer, was convicted in May 2026 of first-degree murder with a firearm and first-degree arson for the February 2021 killing of Richard Benson, owner of Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts in Fort Pierce. SEBASTIAN—A Nineteen Judicial Circuit judge on Tuesday sentenced former Indian River County firefighter and Melbourne police officer Otto Lenke of Sebastian to death for the 2021 killing of a Fort Pierce motorcycle shop owner.

Indiana Parole Board hears testimony on clemency for man scheduled for Nov. 5 execution

Jeffrey Weisheit set his house on fire in 2010, killing his girlfriend’s two young children he was watching.  The Indiana Parole Board will now make a recommendation in the coming days to Governor Mike Braun on whether to grant clemency to condemned killer Jeffrey Weisheit.  Jeffrey is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 5 for the 2010 murder of his girlfriend's 2 children in Vanderburgh County. 

Florida executes William Reaves

Florida puts 77-year-old man to death for a deputy's killing in its 18th execution this year  Florida carried out its 18th execution of the year on Tuesday under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ aggressive use of the death penalty in his final term.  William Reaves, 77, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 shooting death of Indian River County Deputy Richard Raczkowski. 

Saudi Arabia | Execution caught on video

Public execution in Saudi Arabia (file photo) A Saudi newspaper has carried a film showing the beheading of a man convicted of raping a teenaged boy before murdering him in the heart of the desert. The rare and shocking 51-second film showed the executioner bringing down his sword on the defendant’s head, which was severed in just a split of second. The executioner, a tall man wearing traditional Saudi dishdasha (gown) and ghutra (head cover), then wiped blood off his sword with a piece of cloth after the beheading before walking away from the rapist’s headless body. Sharq newspaper, which published the film, did not say how it was shot as filming of executions in the conservative Gulf kingdom is banned. Newspapers said the unnamed defendant had been convicted of abducting the Saudi boy to a desolate desert area and raping him. He then forced him to lie on the sand and crushed him with his four-wheel car. Warning: Graphic Content ✔ RELATED VIDEO...

Saudi Arabia executes five on terrorism charges

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia executed five people Saturday on terrorism charges, the ministry of interior said, bringing the total number of death sentences carried out this year to 188, according to an AFP tally based on official statements. The five Saudi nationals were convicted of “joining a foreign terrorist organization," opening fire on security forces and “providing support” for “terrorist operations inside the kingdom." Their executions were carried out in the Eastern Province, home to most of Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslim minority, which has long complained of marginalization in the Sunni-majority country.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next.  Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday.  She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.