IRAN 'HANGS MAN FOR MURDER COMMITTED AS MINOR'

August 19, 2008: Iran hanged a man for a murder committed at the age of 15, in violation of an international convention on child rights, reports said. Reza Hejazi, 20, was hanged in a prison in the central city of Isfahan for stabbing a man to death in a fight in 2003, the reformist Etemad newspaper said. The execution came as several prominent film stars were summoned before a Tehran court over the launch of a campaign to raise "blood money" to save the life of another man on death row for a murder he committed when he was 17. Shortly before Hejazi was to go to the gallows, prison officials agreed to his lawyer's request to stay the execution so that he could negotiate with the victim's family, Etemad said. But the authorities went ahead with the hanging later in the day in the absence of his lawyer and family. (Sources: Agence France Presse, 20/08/2008)