Iran secretly executes two teenage boys for rape without telling their families sparking outrage over ‘child’ executions
IRAN has secretly flogged and executed two teenage boys without telling them or their families – sparking outrage over child executions. Amnesty International says that both 17-year-old victims “were unaware that they had been sentenced to death until shortly before their executions”. The human rights group said: “Both were arrested aged 15 and convicted on […]
IRAN has secretly flogged and executed two teenage boys without telling them or their families – sparking outrage over child executions.
Amnesty International says that both 17-year-old victims “were unaware that they had been sentenced to death until shortly before their executions”.
The human rights group said: “Both were arrested aged 15 and convicted on multiple rape charges following an unfair trial.”
Mehdi Sohrabifar and Amin Sedaghat had been imprisoned in a juvenile correction centre in Shiraz since 2017.
On April 24, they were transferred to Adelabad prison, without knowing the reason, the charity explained.
Although on “the same day their families were granted a visit with them, they were not told that it was in preparation for their execution.
“The next day, on April 25, the families suddenly received a call from Iran’s Legal Medicine Organisation, a state forensic institute, informing them of the executions and asking them to collect the bodies.”
LASH MARKS ON BOYS’ BODIES
The charity said it had received information that both prisoners “bore lash marks on their bodies, indicating that they had been flogged before their deaths.
“Their families and lawyers were not informed about the executions in advance and were shocked to learn of the news.
“The Iranian authorities have once again proved that they are sickeningly prepared to put children to death, in flagrant disregard of international law.”
Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director, said: “It seems they cruelly kept these two boys in the dark about their death sentence for two years, flogged them in the final moments of their lives and then carried out their executions in secret.”
The charity alleged that “the legal proceedings leading to the two boys’ conviction and sentence were unfair and flagrantly violated the principles of juvenile justice.
“Following their arrest, they were held for two months in a police detention centre, where they said they were beaten.
“They also had no access to a lawyer during the investigation stage.”
Amnesty International said it had “recorded the execution of 97 individuals in Iran who were under the age of 18 at the time of the crime between 1990 and 2018.
“More than 90 others remain at risk of execution.”
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It said Sohrabifar and Sedaghat’s secret executions “reinforced concerns that the real number of executions of juvenile offenders in the country is actually higher than the figure recorded.”
The teens’ deaths echo shocking executions in Saudi Arabia, where young victims have been reported in The Sun Online as being tortured with electricity before being beheaded.
One bloodthirsty Saudi executioner described how he loved his job, saying that his kids even help him to clean his sword before he carried out beheadings.
The desert kingdom reportedly executed 43 people in the first three months of this year alone, including 37 who were killed in one day in a beheading bloodbath.
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