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IRAN. IRANIAN WOMAN TO DIE FOR MURDER OF FOOTBALLER'S WIFE
October 2, 2005: Iran's supreme court upheld a death sentence against Khadijeh Shahla Jahed, a jealous woman who murdered the wife of a former national football hero. After a one week closed-door trial in June 2005, Shahla Jahed was found guilty of the premeditated stabbing two years previously of Laleh Saharkhizan, the wife of soccer hero and top coach Nasser Mohammad Khani. It was not clear if her execution would be carried out in public, despite the massive public interest in the case and demands from the family of the victim. A star of the game in the late 1980s who went on to coach Tehran's Persepolis club, Khani was in Germany on a training trip at the time of the killing.
He had initially been suspected of complicity and held in jail for several months, but was released after his jealous lover confessed to acting alone.
Shahla Jahed had been his temporary wife, a practice approved of in the Islamic republic. Their temporary marital status meant that Khani escaped any charges of adultery.
In a practice unique to Shiite Islam, Muslim males in the Islamic republic can take on temporary wives for periods ranging from just a few hours to several decades.
Khani was, however, sentenced to 74 lashes after being found guilty of taking drugs with his mistress. Shahla Jahed also faced being lashed before her hanging after being similarly convicted of narcotics consumption. (Sources: Agence France Presse, 02/10/2005)
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