Iran executes 20-year-old who murdered at age 15

International Herald Tribune

TEHRAN: Iran has executed a 20-year-old man who was sentenced to death for a murder he committed when he was 15, reviving an international debate over its punishment of minors.

The man, Reza Hejazi, was hanged in a prison in the central city of Isfahan on Tuesday for stabbing a man in a fight in 2003, according to the daily newspaper Etemad. Four others, including two drug smugglers in Tehran and a rapist and a drug smuggler in Isfahan, were also hanged on Tuesday, Iranian news agencies reported.

That brings the number of executions in Iran to more than 190 in 2008, according to a count by Amnesty International. Last year, Iran executed 317 people, more than any other country except China, Amnesty says.

Human rights groups condemned the execution of Hejazi, arguing that he was a minor at the time of the murder and therefore fit the category of a juvenile offender.

Iran is a signatory to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, neither of which allow the execution of minors under the age of 18.

However, according to Iran's Islamic law, boys are punishable from the age of 15 and girls from the age of nine. Iranian officials say they wait until juvenile offenders reach 18 before they carry out a death sentence.

Amnesty International argues that the execution of Hejazi brings the number of juvenile executions to five in 2008. Some 36 have been executed since 1990 and 132 are on the death row, the group says.

"The execution of juvenile offenders is prohibited under international law," the group said in a statement Tuesday. "Iran is a state party" to the International Conventions "and so has undertaken not to execute anyone for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18," the statement added.

In the meantime, the Iranian judiciary summoned two prominent actors, Parviz Parastooi and Ezatollah Entezami, and a movie director, Kiumars Poorahmad, for trying to collect money for Behnood Shojai, another juvenile offender who is on death row.

The three men were calling on people to donate money to save Shojaee's life for a murder he committed when he was 17. They said they had earned the consent of the victim's family to spare Shojaee's life in return for a generous amount of money, called blood money under Iranian law.

The bank account was blocked by the Judiciary.

A judiciary official, Mohammad Hossein Shamloo, told the ISNA news agency on Tuesday that the three were summoned after the family of the victim filed a complaint denying that they forgave the murderer in return for blood money.