IRAN: 10 PRISONERS HANGED ON MURDER CHARGES

November 29, 2017:

According to a close source, ten prisoners were executed at Rajai Shahr Prison. Most of these prisoners, who were transferred to solitary confinement in a group of 13, were convicted of murder and sentenced to "qisas" (retribution in kind).
Five of these prisoners are identified as Majid Nazifi from ward 3, Farshid Karimi from ward 10, Hassan Aminzadeh from ward 6, Hossein Alishir from ward 3, and Qasem Mehrabi from ward 6.
Moreover, the state-run news site, Rokna, only reported the execution of one of the prisoners, identified as Dariush, but remained silent about the other nine.
A close source told Iran Human Rights (IHR) about Majid Nazifi, “He had been transferred to solitary confinement once before, but this time the plaintiffs didn’t give him time and he was hanged. He killed a man during a fight but the victim wasn’t the one fighting him. It was an unintentional murder. The plaintiffs agreed to give their consent for 200 million Tomans (about 48500 dollars) but Majid’s family failed to raise the money.”
One of the prisoners who asked for time was identified as Ali Biabani. He was sentenced to death on the charge of murdering his own friend over a prank.
According to Iran Human Rights annual report on the death penalty, 142 of the 530 execution sentences in 2016 were implemented due to murder charges. There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent.